Chapter XVIII: Part 18

[266] 'Of whom I acknowledge myself to be one, considering it as a piece of the secondary or comparative species of criticism; and not of that profound species which alone Dr. Johnson would allow to be "real criticism." It is, besides, clearly and elegantly expressed, and has done effectually what it professed to do, namely, vindicated Shakespeare from the misrepresentations of Voltaire; and considering how many young people were misled by his witty, though false observations, Mrs. Montagu's Essay was of service to Shakspeare with a certain class of readers, and is, therefore, entitled to praise. Johnson, I am assured, allowed the merit which I have stated, saying, (with reference to Voltaire,) "it is conclusive _ad hominem_."' BOSWELL. That this dull essay, which would not do credit to a clever school-girl of seventeen, should have had a fame, of which the echoes have not yet quite died out, can only be fully explained by Mrs. Montagu's great wealth and position in society. Contemptible as was her essay, yet a saying of hers about Voltaire was clever. 'He sent to the Academy an invective [against Shakespeare] that bears all the marks of passionate dotage. Mrs. Montagu happened to be present when it was read. Suard, one of their writers, said to her, "Je crois, Madame, que vous A¬tes un peu fAcchA(C) (sic) de ce que vous venez d'entendre." She replied, "Moi, Monsieur! point du tout! Je ne suis pas amie de M. Voltaire."' Walpole's _Letters_, vi. 394. Her own _Letters_ are very pompous and very poor, and her wit would not seem to have flashed often; for Miss Burney wrote of her:--'She reasons well, and harangues well, but wit she has none.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, i. 335. Yet in this same _Diary_ (i. 112) we find evidence of the absurdly high estimate that was commonly formed of her. 'Mrs. Thrale asked me if I did not want to see Mrs. Montagu. I truly said, I should be the most insensible of all animals not to like to see our sex's glory.' That she was a very extraordinary woman we have Johnson's word for it. (See _post_, May 15, 1784.) It is impossible, however, to discover anything that rises above commonplace in anything that she wrote, and, so far as I know, that she said, with the exception of her one saying about Voltaire. Johnson himself, in one of his letters to Mrs. Thrale, has a laugh at her. He had mentioned Shakespeare, nature and friendship, and continues:--'Now, of whom shall I proceed to speak? Of whom but Mrs. Montagu? Having mentioned Shakespeare and Nature, does not the name of Montagu force itself upon me? Such were the transitions of the ancients, which now seem abrupt, because the intermediate idea is lost to modern understandings. I wish her name had connected itself with friendship; but, ah Colin, thy hopes are in vain.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 101. See _post_, April 7, 1778.

[267] 'Reynolds is fond of her book, and I wonder at it; for neither I, nor Beauclerk, nor Mrs. Thrale, could get through it.' Boswell's _Hebrides_, Sept. 23, 1773.

[268] Lord Kames is 'the Scotchman.' See _ante_, i. 393.

[269] 'When Charles Townshend read some of Lord Kames's _Elements of Criticism_, he said:--"This is the work of a dull man grown whimsical"--a most characteristical account of Lord Kames as a writer.' _Boswelliana_, p. 278. Hume wrote of it:--'Some parts of the work are ingenious and curious; but it is too abstruse and crabbed ever to take with the public.' J. H. Burton's _Hume_, ii. 131. 'Kames,' he says, 'had much provoked Voltaire, who never forgives, and never thinks any enemy below his notice.' _Ib_, p. 195. Voltaire (_Works_, xliii. 302) thus ridicules his book:--'Il nous prouve d'abord que nous avons cinq sens, et que nous sentons moins l'impression douce faite sur nos yeux et sur nos oreilles par les couleurs et par les sons que nous ne sentons un grand coup sur la jambe ou sur la tA¬te.'

[270] L'AbbA(C) Dubos, 1670-1742. 'Tous les artistes lisent avec fruit ses _RA(C)flexions sur la poA(C)sie, la peinture, et la musique_. C'est le livre le plus utile qu'on ait jamais A(C)crit sur ces matiA"res chez aucune des nations de l'Europe.' Voltaire's _SiA"cle de Louis XIV_, i. 81.

[271] Bouhours, 1628-1702. Voltaire, writing of Bouhours' _ManiA"re de bien penser sur les ouvrages d'esprit_, says that he teaches young people 'A A(C)viter l'enflure, l'obscuritA(C), le recherchA(C), et le faux.' _Ib_, p. 54. Johnson, perhaps, knew him, through _The Spectator_, No. 62, where it is said that he has shown 'that it is impossible for any thought to be beautiful which is not just, ... that the basis of all wit is truth.'

[272] _Macbeth_, act iii. sc. 2.

[273] In _The False Alarm_, that was published less than three months after this conversation, Johnson describes how petitions were got. 'The progress of a petition is well known. An ejected placeman goes down to his county or his borough, tells his friends of his inability to serve them, and his constituents of the corruption of the Government. His friends readily understand that he who can get nothing will have nothing to give. They agree to proclaim a meeting; meat and drink are plentifully provided, a crowd is easily brought together, and those who think that they know the reason of their meeting, undertake to tell those who know it not; ale and clamour unite their powers.... The petition is read, and universally approved. Those who are sober enough to write, add their names, and the rest would sign it if they could.' _Works_, vi. 172. Yet, when the petitions for Dr. Dodd's life were rejected, Johnson said:--'Surely the voice of the public when it calls so loudly, and calls only for mercy, ought to be heard.' _Post_, June 28, 1777. Horace Walpole, writing of the numerous petitions presented to the King this year (1769), blames 'an example so inconsistent with the principles of liberty, as appealing to the Crown against the House of Commons.' Some of them prayed for a dissolution of Parliament. _Memoirs of the Reign of George III_, iii. 382, 390. Two years earlier Lord Shelburne, when Secretary of State, had found among the subscribers to a petition for his impeachment, a friend of his, a London alderman. 'Oh! aye,' said the alderman when asked for an explanation, 'I did sign a petition at the Royal Exchange, which they told me was for the impeachment of a Minister; I always sign a petition to impeach a Minister, and I recollect that as soon as I had subscribed it, twenty more put their names to it.' _Parl. Hist_., xxxv. 167.

[274] See _post_, under March 24, 1776.

[275] Mr. Robert Chambers says that the author of the ballad was Elizabeth Halket, wife of Sir Henry Wardlaw. She died about 1727. 'The ballad of Hardyknute was the first poem I ever read, and it will be the last I shall forget.' SIR WALTER SCOTT. Croker's _Boswell_, p. 205.

[276] John Ray published, in 1674, _A Collection of English Words_, &c., and _A Collection of English Proverbs_. In 1768 the two were published in one volume.

[277] See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Sept. 23, 1773.

[278]

'Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player That struts and frets his hour upon the stage.'

_Macbeth_, Act v. se. 5.

[279] In the _Garrick Corres_., i. 385, there is a letter from Mrs. Montagu to Garrick, which shows the ridiculous way in which Shakespeare was often patronised last century, and 'brought into notice.' She says:--'Mrs. Montagu is a little jealous for poor Shakespeare, for if Mr. Garrick often acts Kitely, Ben Jonson will eclipse his fame.'

[280] 'Familiar comedy is often more powerful on the theatre than in the page; imperial tragedy is always less.' Johnson's _Works_, v. 122. See also Boswell's _Hebrides_, August 15 and 16, 1773, where Johnson 'displayed another of his heterodox opinions--a contempt of tragick acting.' Murphy (_Life_, p. 145) thus writes of Johnson's slighting Garrick and the stage:--'The fact was, Johnson could not see the passions as they rose and chased one another in the varied features of that expressive face; and by his own manner of reciting verses, which was wonderfully impressive, he plainly showed that he thought there was too much of artificial tone and measured cadence in the declamation of the theatre.' Reynolds said of Johnson's recitation, that 'it had no more tone than it should the have.' Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 26, 1773. See _post_, April 3, 1773.

[281] See _post_, April 6, 1775, where Johnson, speaking of Cibber's 'talents of conversation,' said:--'He had but half to furnish; for one half of what he said was oaths.'

[282] See _ante_, June 13, 1763.

[283] See _post_, Sept. 21, 1777.

[284] On Oct. 18, one day, not two days before, four men were hanged at Tyburn for robbery on the highway, one for stealing money and linen, and one for forgery. _Gent. Mag_., xxxix. 508. Boswell, in _The Hypochondriack_, No. 68 (_London Mag_. for 1783, p. 203), republishes a letter which he had written on April 25, 1768, to the _Public Advertiser_, after he had witnessed the execution of an attorney named Gibbon, and a youthful highwayman. He says:--'I must confess that I myself am never absent from a public execution.... When I first attended them, I was shocked to the greatest degree. I was in a manner convulsed with pity and terror, and for several days, but especially nights after, I was in a very dismal situation. Still, however, I persisted in attending them, and by degrees my sensibility abated, so that I can now see one with great composure. I can account for this curiosity in a philosophical manner, when I consider that death is the most awful object before every man, whoever directs his thoughts seriously towards futurity. Therefore it is that I feel an irresistible impulse to be present at every execution, as I there behold the various effects of the near approach of death.' He maintains 'that the curiosity which impels people to be present at such affecting scenes, is certainly a proof of sensibility, not of callousness. For, it is observed, that the greatest proportion of the spectators is composed of women.' See _post_, June 23, 1784.

[285] Of Johnson, perhaps, might almost be said what he said of Swift (_Works_, viii. 207):--'The thoughts of death rushed upon him at this time with such incessant importunity that they took possession of his mind, when he first waked, for many hours together.' Writing to Mrs. Thrale from Lichfield on Oct. 27, 1781, he says:--'All here is gloomy; a faint struggle with the tediousness of time, a doleful confession of present misery, and the approach seen and felt of what is most dreaded and most shunned. But such is the lot of man.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 209.

[286] Johnson, during a serious illness, thus wrote to Mrs. Thrale:--'When any man finds himself disposed to complain with how little care he is regarded, let him reflect how little he contributed to the happiness of others, and how little, for the most part, he suffers from their pain. It is perhaps not to be lamented that those solicitudes are not long nor frequent which must commonly be vain; nor can we wonder that, in a state in which all have so much to feel of their own evils, very few have leisure for those of another.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 14. See _post_, Sept. 14, 1777.

[287] 'I was shocked to find a letter from Dr. Holland, to the effect that poor Harry Hallam is dying at Sienna [Vienna]. What a trial for my dear old friend! I feel for the lad himself, too. Much distressed. I dined, however. We dine, unless the blow comes very, very near the heart indeed.' Macaulay's _Life_, ii. 287. See also _ante_, i. 355.

[288] See _post_, Feb. 24, 1773, for 'a furious quarrel' between Davies and Baretti.

[289] Foote, two or three years before this, had lost one leg through an accident in hunting. Forster's _Essays_, ii. 398. See _post_, under Feb. 7, 1775.

[290] When Mr. Foote was at Edinburgh, he thought fit to entertain a numerous Scotch company, with a great deal of coarse jocularity, at the expense of Dr. Johnson, imagining it would be acceptable. I felt this as not civil to me; but sat very patiently till he had exhausted his merriment on that subject; and then observed, that surely Johnson must be allowed to have some sterling wit, and that I had heard him say a very good thing of Mr. Foote himself. 'Ah, my old friend Sam (cried Foote), no man says better things; do let us have it.' Upon which I told the above story, which produced a very loud laugh from the company. But I never saw Foote so disconcerted. He looked grave and angry, and entered into a serious refutation of the justice of the remark. 'What, Sir, (said he), talk thus of a man of liberal education;--a man who for years was at the University of Oxford;--a man who has added sixteen new characters to the English drama of his country!' BOSWELL.

Foote was at Worcester College, but he left without taking his degree. He was constantly in scrapes. When the Provost, Dr. Gower, who was a pedant, sent for him to reprimand him, 'Foote would present himself with great apparent gravity and submission, but with a large dictionary under his arm; when, on the doctor beginning in his usual pompous manner with a surprisingly long word, he would immediately interrupt him, and, after begging pardon with great formality, would produce his dictionary, and pretending to find the meaning of the word, would say, "Very well, Sir; now please to go on."' Forster's _Essays_, ii. 307. Dr. Gower is mentioned by Dr. King (_Anec_., p. 174) as one of the three persons he had known 'who spoke English with that elegance and propriety, that if all they said had been immediately committed to writing, any judge of the language would have pronounced it an excellent and very beautiful style.' The other two were Bishop Atterbury and Dr. Johnson.

[291] _Cento_. A composition formed by joining scrapes from other authours.' Johnson's _Dictionary_.

[292] See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Sept. 30, 1773.

[293] For the position of these chaplains see _The Tatler_, No. 255, and _The Guardian_, No. 163.

[294] 'He had been assailed in the grossest manner possible by a woman of the town, and, driving her off with a blow, was set upon by three bullies. He thereupon ran away in great fear, for he was a timid man, and being pursued, had stabbed two of the men with a small knife he carried in his pocket.' Garrick and Beauclerk testified that every one abroad carried such a knife, for in foreign inns only forks were provided. 'When you travel abroad do you carry such knives as this?' Garrick was asked. 'Yes,' he answered, 'or we should have no victuals.' _Dr. Johnson: His Friends and His Critics_, p. 288. I have extracted from the _Sessional Reports_ for 1769, p. 431, the following evidence as to Baretti's character:--'SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. I have known Mr. Baretti fifteen or sixteen years. He is a man of great humanity, and very active in endeavouring to help his friends. He is a gentleman of a good temper; I never knew him quarrelsome in my life; he is of a sober disposition.... This affair was on a club night of the Royal Academicians. We expected him there, and were inquiring about him before we heard of this accident. He is secretary for foreign correspondence.' 'DR. JOHNSON. I believe I began to be acquainted with Mr. Baretti about the year '53 or '54. I have been intimate with him. He is a man of literature, a very studious man, a man of great diligence. He gets his living by study. I have no reason to think he was ever disordered with liquor in his life. A man that I never knew to be otherwise than peaceable, and a man that I take to be rather timorous.' Qu. 'Was he addicted to pick up women in the street?' 'Dr. J. I never knew that he was.' Qu. 'How is he as to his eye-sight?' 'Dr. J. He does not see me now, nor I do not [sic] see him. I do not believe he could be capable of assaulting anybody in the street without great provocation.' 'EDMUND BURKE, ESQ. I have known him between three and four years; he is an ingenious man, a man of remarkable humanity--a thorough good-natured man.' 'DAVID GARRICK, ESQ. I never knew a man of a more active benevolence.... He is a man of great probity and morals.' 'DR. GOLDSMITH. I have had the honour of Mr. Baretti's company at my chambers in the Temple. He is a most humane, benevolent, peaceable man.... He is a man of as great humanity as any in the world.' Mr. Fitzherbert and Dr. Hallifax also gave evidence. 'There were divers other gentlemen in court to speak for his character, but the Court thought it needless to call them.' It is curious that Boswell passes over Reynolds and Goldsmith among the witnesses. Baretti's bail before Lord Mansfield were Burke, Garrick, Reynolds, and Fitzherbert. Mrs. Piozzi tells the following anecdotes of Baretti:--'When Johnson and Burke went to see him in Newgate, they had small comfort to give him, and bid him not hope too strongly. "Why, what can _he_ fear," says Baretti, placing himself between them, "that holds two such hands as I do?" An Italian came one day to Baretti, when he was in Newgate, to desire a letter of recommendation for the teaching his scholars, when he (Baretti) should be hanged. "You rascal," replies Baretti in a rage, "if I were not _in my own apartment_, I would kick you down stairs directly."' Hayward's _Piazzi_, ii. 348. Dr. T. Campbell, in his _Diary_ (p. 52), wrote on April 1, 1775:--'Boswell and Baretti, as I learned, are mortal foes; so much so that Murphy and Mrs. Thrale agreed that Boswell expressed a desire that Baretti should be hanged upon that unfortunate affair of his killing, &c.'

[295] Lord Auchinleck, we may assume. Johnson said of Pope, that 'he was one of those few whose labor is their pleasure.' _Works_, viii. 321.

[296] I have since had reason to think that I was mistaken; for I have been informed by a lady, who was long intimate with her, and likely to be a more accurate observer of such matters, that she had acquired such a niceness of touch, as to know, by the feeling on the outside of the cup, how near it was to being full. BOSWELL. Baretti, in a MS. note on _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 84, says:--'I dined with Dr. Johnson as seldom as I could, though often scolded for it; but I hated to see the victuals pawed by poor Mrs. Williams, that would often carve, though stone blind.'

[297] See _ante_, July 1 and Aug. 2, 1763.

[298] See _ante_, i. 232.

[299] An Italian quack who in 1765 established medicated baths in Cheney Walk, Chelsea. CROKER.

[300] The same saying is recorded _post_, May 15, 1784, and in Boswell's _Hebrides_, Oct. 5, 1773. 'Cooke reports another saying of Goldsmith's to the same effect:--"There's no chance for you in arguing with Johnson. Like the Tartar horse, if he does not conquer you in front, his kick from behind is sure to be fatal."' Forster's _Goldsmith_, ii. 167. 'In arguing,' wrote Sir Joshua Reynolds, 'Johnson did not trouble himself with much circumlocution, but opposed directly and abruptly his antagonist. He fought with all sorts of weapons--ludicrous comparisons and similies; if all failed, with rudeness and overbearing. He thought it necessary never to be worsted in argument. He had one virtue which I hold one of the most difficult to practise. After the heat of contest was over, if he had been informed that his antagonist resented his rudeness, he was the first to seek after a reconciliation.... That he was not thus strenuous for victory with his intimates in tA¬te-A -tA¬te conversations when there were no witnesses, may be easily believed. Indeed, had his conduct been to them the same as he exhibited to the public, his friends could never have entertained that love and affection for him which they all feel and profess for his memory.' Taylor's _Reynolds_, ii. 457, 462.

[301] He had written the _Introduction_ to it. _Ante_, p. 317.

[302] See _post_, beginning of 1770.

[303] He accompanied Boswell on his tour to the Hebrides. Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 18, 1773.

[304] While he was in Scotland he never entered one of the churches. 'I will not give a sanction,' he said, 'by my presence, to a Presbyterian assembly.' _Ib_ Aug. 27, 1773. When he was in France he went to a Roman Catholic service; _post_, Oct. 29, 1775.

[305] See _post_, March 21, 1772.

[306] See _ante_, ii. 82.

[307] See _post_, March 27, 1772.

[308] See _post_, May 7, 1773, Oct. 10, 1779, and June 9, 1784.

[309] _St. James_, v. 16.

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

[311] Laceration was properly a term of surgery; hence the italics. See _post_, Jan. 20, 1780.

[312] See _post_, April 15, 1778.

[313] See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Sept. 12, 1773.

[314] He bids us pray 'For faith that panting for a happier seat, Counts death kind nature's signal of retreat.'

[315]

'To die is landing on some silent shore, Where billows never beat, nor tempests roar, Ere well we feel the friendly stroke, 'tis o'er.'

GARTH. Quoted in Johnson's _Works_, vi. 61. Bacon, if he was the author of _An Essay on Death_, says, 'I do not believe that any man fears to be dead, but only the stroke of death.' Spedding's _Bacon_, vi. 600. Cicero (_Tuscul. Quaest_. i. 8) quotes Epicharmus's saying:--'Emori nolo, sed me esse mortuum nihil aestimo.'

[316] See _post_, beginning of 1773.

[317] See _post_, April 17, 1778.

[318] Perhaps _on_ is a misprint for _or_.

[319] Johnson says of Blackmore (_Works_, viii. 36) that 'he is one of those men whose lot it has been to be much oftener mentioned by enemies than by friends.'

[320] This account Johnson says he had from an eminent bookseller, who had it from Ambrose Philips the poet. 'The relation of Philips,' he adds, 'I suppose was true; but when all reasonable, all credible allowance is made for this friendly revision, the author will still retain an ample dividend of praise.... Correction seldom effects more than the suppression of faults: a happy line, or a single elegance, may perhaps be added, but of a large work the general character must always remain.' _Works_, viii. 41.

[321] An acute correspondent of the _European Magazine_, April, 1792, has completely exposed a mistake which has been unaccountably frequent in ascribing these lines to Blackmore, notwithstanding that Sir Richard Steele, in that very popular work, _The Spectator_, mentions them as written by the Authour of The British Princes, the Honourable Edward Howard. The correspondent above mentioned, shews this mistake to be so inveterate, that not only _I_ defended the lines as Blackmore's, in the presence of Dr. Johnson, without any contradiction or doubt of their authenticity, but that the Reverend Mr. Whitaker has asserted in print, that he understands they were _suppressed_ in the late edition or editions of Blackmore. 'After all (says this intelligent writer) it is not unworthy of particular observation, that these lines so often quoted do not exist either in Blackmore or Howard.' In _The British Princes_, 8vo. 1669, now before me, p. 96, they stand thus:--

'A vest as admired Voltiger had on, Which, from this Island's foes, his grandsire won, Whose artful colour pass'd the Tyrian dye, Oblig'd to triumph in this legacy.'

It is probable, I think, that some wag, in order to make Howard still more ridiculous than he really was, has formed the couplet as it now circulates. BOSWELL. Swift in his _Poetry: A Rhapsody_, thus joins Howard and Blackmore together:--

'Remains a difficulty still, To purchase fame by writing ill. From Flecknoe down to Howard's time How few have reached the low sublime! For when our high-born Howard died, Blackmore alone his place supplied.'

_Swift's Works_ (1803), xi. 296.

[322] Boswell seems to have borrowed the notion from _The Spectator_, No. 43, where Steele, after saying that the poet blundered because he was 'vivacious as well as stupid,' continues:--'A fool of a colder constitution would have staid to have flayed the Pict, and made buff of his skin for the wearing of the conqueror.'

[323] See _ante_, ii. 100, note 1.

[324] Mrs. Piozzi (_Anec_. p. 97) tells how one day at Streatham 'when he was musing over the fire, a young gentleman called to him suddenly, and I suppose he thought disrespectfully, in these words:--"Mr. Johnson, would you advise me to marry?" "I would advise no man to marry, Sir," returns for answer in a very angry tone Dr. Johnson, "who is not likely to propagate understanding," and so left the room. Our companion looked confounded, and I believe had scarce recovered the consciousness of his own existence, when Johnson came back, and drawing his chair among us, with altered looks and a softened voice, joined in the general chat, insensibly led the conversation to the subject of marriage, where he laid himself out in a dissertation so useful, so elegant, so founded on the true knowledge of human life, and so adorned with beauty of sentiment, that no one ever recollected the offence except to rejoice in its consequences.' This 'young gentleman,' according to Mr. Hayward (Mrs. Piozzi's _Auto_. i. 69), was Sir John Lade, the hero of the ballad which Johnson recited on his death-bed. For other instances of Johnson's seeking a reconciliation, see _post_, May 7, 1773, and April 12 and May 8, 1778.

[325] '_The False Alarm_, his first and favourite pamphlet, was written at our house between eight o'clock on Wednesday night and twelve o'clock on Thursday night. We read it to Mr. Thrale when he came very late home from the House of Commons.' Piozzi's _Anec_. p. 41. See also _post_, Nov. 26, 1774, where Johnson says that '_The Patriot_ was called for by my political friends on Friday, was written on Saturday.'

[326] Wilkes was first elected member for Middlesex at the General Election of March, 1768. He did not take his seat, having been thrown into prison before Parliament met. On Feb. 3, 1769, he was declared incapable of being elected, and a new writ was ordered. On Feb. 16 he was again elected, and without opposition. His election was again declared void. On March 16 he was a third time elected, and without opposition. His election was again declared void. On April 13 he was a fourth time elected by 1143 votes against 296 given for Colonel Luttrell. On the 14th the poll taken for him was declared null and void, and on the 15th, Colonel Luttrell was declared duly elected. _Parl. Hist_. xvi. 437, and Almon's _Wilkes_, iv. 4. See _post_, Oct. 12, 1779.

[327] The resolution of expulsion was carried on Feb. 17, 1769. _Parl. Hist_. xvi. 577. It was expunged on May 3, 1782. _Ib_ xxii. 1407.

[328] In the original it is not _rulers_, but _railers_. Johnson's _Works_, vi. 176.

[329] How slight the change of system was is shown by a passage in Forster's _Goldsmith_, ii. 388. Mr. Forster mentions a 'memorial in favour of the most worthless of hack-partizans, Shebbeare, which obtained for him his pension of AL200 a year. It is signed by fifteen members of the House of Commons, and it asks for a pension "that he may be enabled to pursue that laudable _inclination which he has_ of manifesting his zeal for the service of his Majesty and his Government"; in other words, that a rascal shall be bribed to support a corrupt administration.' Horace Walpole, in 1757 (_Letters_, iii. 54), described Shebbeare as one 'who made a pious resolution of writing himself into a place or the pillory, but who miscarried in both views.' He added in a note, 'he did write himself into a pillory before the conclusion of that reign, and into a pension at the beginning of the next, for one and the same kind of merit--writing against King William and the Revolution.' See also _post_, end of May, 1781.

[330] Johnson could scarcely be soothed by lines such as the following:--

'Never wilt thou retain the hoarded store, In virtue affluent, but in metal poor; * * * * * Great is thy prose; great thy poetic strain, Yet to dull coxcombs are they great in vain.

[331] Stockdale, who was born in 1736 and died in 1811, wrote _Memoirs of his Life_--a long, dull book, but containing a few interesting anecdotes of Johnson. He thought himself, and the world also, much ill-used by the publishers, when they passed him over and chose Johnson to edit the _Lives of the Poets_. He lodged both in Johnson's Court and in Bolt Court, but preserved little good-will for his neighbour. Johnson, in the _Life of Waller_ (_Works_, vii. 194), quoting from Stockdale's _Life_ of that poet, calls him 'his last ingenious biographer.' I. D'Israeli says that 'the bookseller Flexney complained that whenever this poet came to town, it cost him AL20. Flexney had been the publisher of Churchill's _Works_, and never forgetting the time when he published _The Rosciad_, he was speculating all his life for another Churchill and another quarto poem. Stockdale usually brought him what he wanted, and Flexney found the workman, but never the work.' _Calamities of Authors_, ed. 1812, ii. 314.

[332] 'I believe most men may review all the lives that have passed within their observation without remembering one efficacious resolution, or being able to tell a single instance of a course of practice suddenly changed in consequence of a change of opinion, or an establishment of determination.' _Idler_, No. 27. 'These sorrowful meditations fastened upon Rasselas's mind; he passed four months in resolving to lose no more time in idle resolves.' _Rasselas_, ch. iv.

[333] _Pr. and Med_. p. 95. [p. 101.] BOSWELL.

[334] See _ante_, i. 368.

[335] The passage remains unrevised in the second edition.

[336] Johnson had suffered greatly from rheumatism this year, as well as from other disorders. He mentions 'spasms in the stomach which disturbed me for many years, and for two past harassed me almost to distraction.' These, however, by means of a strong remedy, had at Easter nearly ceased. 'The pain,' he adds, 'harrasses me much; yet many leave the disease perhaps in a much higher degree, with want of food, fire, and covering, which I find also grievous, with all the succours that riches kindness can buy and give.' (He was staying at Mr. Thrale's) _Pr. and Med_. pp. 92-95. 'Shall I ever,' he asks on Easter Day, 'receive the Sacrament with tranquility? Surely the time will come.' _Ib_ p. 99.

[337] Son of the learned Mrs. Grierson, who was patronised by the late Lord Granville, and was the editor of several of the Classicks. BOSWELL.

[338]

'Pontificum libros, annosa volumina vatum, Dictitet Albano Musas in monte locutas.' 'Then swear transported that the sacred Nine Pronounced on Alba's top each hallowed line.'

FRANCIS. Horace, _Epis_. II. i. 26.

[339] See _ante_, i. 131, where Boswell says that 'Johnson afterwards honestly acknowledged the merit of Walpole.'

[340] See _post_, May 15, 1783.

[341] 'His acquaintance was sought by persons of the first eminence in literature; and his house, in respect of the conversations there, became an academy.' Hawkins's _Johnson_, p. 329. See _ante_, i. 247, 350, note 3.

[342] Probably Madame de Boufflers. See _post_, under November 12, 1775.

[343] 'To talk in publick, to think in solitude, to read and hear, to inquire and answer inquiries, is the business of a scholar.' _Rasselas_, ch. viii. Miss Burney mentions an amusing instance of a consultation by letter. 'The letter was dated from the Orkneys, and cost Dr. Johnson eighteen pence. The writer, a clergyman, says he labours under a most peculiar misfortune, for which he can give no account, and which is that, though he very often writes letters to his friends and others, he never gets any answers. He entreats, therefore, that Dr. Johnson will take this into consideration, and explain to him to what so strange a thing may be attributed.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii. 96.

[344] 'How he [Swift] spent the rest of his time, and how he employed his hours of study, has been inquired with hopeless curiosity. For who can give an account of another's studies? Swift was not likely to admit any to his privacies, or to impart a minute account of his business or his leisure.' Johnson's _Works_, viii. 208.

[345] See _post_, March 31, 1772.

[346] 'He loved the poor,' says Mrs. Piozzi (_Anec_. p. 84), 'as I never yet saw any one else do, with an earnest desire to make them happy. "What signifies," says some one, "giving half-pence to common beggars? they only lay it out in gin or tobacco." "And why should they be denied such sweeteners of their existence?" says Johnson.' The harm done by this indiscriminate charity had been pointed out by Fielding in his _Covent Garden Journal_ for June 2, 1752. He took as the motto for the paper:

'O bone, ne te Frustrere, insanis et tu';

which he translates, 'My good friend, do not deceive thyself; for with all thy charity thou also art a silly fellow.' 'Giving our money to common beggars,' he describes as 'a kind of bounty that is a crime against the public.' Fielding's _Works_, x. 77, ed. 1806. Johnson once allowed (_post_, 1780, in Mr. Langton's _Collection_) that 'one might give away AL500 a year to those that importune in the streets, and not do any good.' See also _post_, Oct. 10, 1779.

[347] He was once attacked, though whether by robbers is not made clear. See _post_, under Feb. 7, 1775.

[348] Perhaps it was this class of people which is described in the following passage:--'It was never against people of coarse life that his contempt was expressed, while poverty of sentiment in men who considered themselves to be company _for the parlour_, as he called it, was what he would not bear.' Piozzi's _Anec_. 215.

[349] See _ante_, i. 320, for one such offer.

[350] See _ante_, i. 163, note 1, and _post_, March 30, 1781.

[351] Dr. T. Campbell, in his _Survey of the South of Ireland_, ed. 1777 (_post_, April 5, 1775), says:--'By one law of the penal code, if a Papist have a horse worth fifty, or five hundred pounds, a Protestant may become the purchaser upon paying him down five. By another of the same code, a son may say to his father, "Sir, if you don't give me what money I want, I'll turn _discoverer_, and in spite of you and my elder brother too, on whom at marriage you settled your estate, I shall become heir,"' p. 251. Father O'Leary, in his _Remarks on Wesley's Letter_, published in 1780 (_post_, _Hebrides_, Aug. 15, 1773), says (p. 41):--'He has seen the venerable matron, after twenty-four years' marriage, banished from the perjured husband's house, though it was proved in open court that for six months before his marriage he went to mass. But the law requires that he should be a year and a day of the same religion.' Burke wrote in 1792: 'The Castle [the government in Dublin] considers the out-lawry (or what at least I look on as such) of the great mass of the people as an unalterable maxim in the government of Ireland.' _Burke's Corres_., iii. 378. See _post_, ii. 130, and May 7, 1773, and Oct. 12, 1779.

[352] See post, just before Feb. 18, 1775.

[353] 'Of Sheridan's writings on elocution, Johnson said, they were a continual renovation of hope, and an unvaried succession of disappointments.' Johnson's _Works_ (1787), xi. 197. See _post_, May 17, 1783.

[354] In 1753, Jonas Hanway published his _Travels to Persia_.

[355] 'Though his journey was completed in eight days he gave a relation of it in two octavo volumes.' Hawkins's _Johnson_, p. 352. See _ante_, i. 313.

[356] See _ante_, i. 68, and _post_, June 9, 1784, note, where he varies the epithet, calling it 'the best piece of _parenetic_ divinity.'

[357] '"I taught myself," Law tells us, "the high Dutch language, on purpose to know the original words of the blessed Jacob."' Overton's _Life of Law_, p. 181. Behmen, or BAÂhme, the mystic shoemaker of Gorlitz, was born in 1575, and died in 1624. 'His books may not hold at all honourable places in libraries; his name may be ridiculous. But he _was_ a generative thinker. What he knew he knew for himself. It was not transmitted to him, but fought for.' F.D. Maurice's _Moral and Meta. Phil_. ii. 325. Of Hudibras's squire, Ralph, it was said:

'He Anthroposophus, and Floud, And Jacob Behmen understood.'

_Hudibras_, I. i. 541.

Wesley (_Journal_, i. 359) writes of Behmen's _Mysteriun Magnum_, 'I can and must say thus much (and that with as full evidence as I can say two and two make four) it is most sublime nonsense, inimitable bombast, fustian not to be paralleled.'

[358] 'He heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter,' 2 Corinthians, xii. 4.

[359] See _ante_, i. 458. In _Humphry Clinker_, in the Letter of June 11, the turnkey of Clerkenwell Prison thus speaks of a Methodist:--'I don't care if the devil had him; here has been nothing but canting and praying since the fellow entered the place. Rabbit him! the tap will be ruined--we han't sold a cask of beer nor a dozen of wine, since he paid his garnish--the gentlemen get drunk with nothing but your damned religion.'

[360] 'John Wesley probably paid more for turnpikes than any other man in England, for no other person travelled so much.' Southey's _Wesley_, i. 407. 'He tells us himself, that he preached about 800 sermons in a year.' _Ib_ ii. 532. In one of his _Appeals to Men of Reason and Religion_, he asks:--'Can you bear the summer sun to beat upon your naked head? Can you suffer the wintry rain or wind, from whatever quarter it blows? Are you able to stand in the open air, without any covering or defence, when God casteth abroad his snow like wool, or scattereth his hoar-frost like ashes? And yet these are some of the smallest inconveniences which accompany field-preaching. For beyond all these, are the contradiction of sinners, the scoffs both of the great vulgar and the small; contempt and reproach of every kind--often more than verbal affronts--stupid, brutal violence, sometimes to the hazard of health, or limbs, or life. Brethren, do you envy us this honour? What, I pray you, would buy you to be a field-preacher? Or what, think you, could induce any man of common sense to continue therein one year, unless he had a full conviction in himself that it was the will of God concerning him?' Southey's _Wesley_, i. 405.

[361] Stockdale reported to Johnson, that Pope had told Lyttelton that the reason why he had not translated Homer into blank verse was 'that he could translate it more easily into rhyme. "Sir," replied Johnson, "when the Pope said that, he knew that he lied."' Stockdale's _Memoirs_, ii. 44. In the _Life of Somervile_, Johnson says:--'If blank verse be not tumid and gorgeous, it is crippled prose.' Johnson's _Works_, viii. 95. See _post_ beginning of 1781.

[362] _Ephesians_, v. 20.

[363] In the original--'Yet all hope pleasure in what yet remain' See _post_ June 12, 1784.

[364] See _post_ under Aug 29, 1783, and Boswell's _Hebrides_ Oct 14, 1773.

[365] 'The chief glory of every people arises from its authours.' Johnson's _Works_, v 49.

[366] In a Discourse by Sir William Jones, addressed to the Asiatick Society [in Calcutta], Feb. 24, 1785, is the following passage:--

'One of the most sagacious men in this age who continues, I hope, to improve and adorn it, Samuel Johnson [he had been dead ten weeks], remarked in my hearing, that if Newton had flourished in ancient Greece, he would have been worshipped as a Divinity.' MALONE. Johnson, in _An Account of an Attempt to ascertain the Longitude_ (_Works_, v, 299), makes the supposed author say:--'I have lived till I am able to produce in my favour the testimony of time, the inflexible enemy of false hypotheses; the only testimony which it becomes human understanding to oppose to the authority of Newton.'

[367] Murphy (_Life_, p. 91) places the scene of such a conversation in the house of the Bishop of Salisbury. 'Boscovitch,' he writes, 'had a ready current flow of that flimsy phraseology with which a priest may travel through Italy, Spain, and Germany. Johnson scorned what he called colloquial barbarisms. It was his pride to speak his best. He went on, after a little practice, with as much facility as if it was his native tongue. One sentence this writer well remembers. Observing that Fontenelle at first opposed the Newtonian philosophy, and embraced it afterwards, his words were:--"Fontenellus, ni fallor, in extrema senectute fuit transfuga ad castra Newtoniana."' See _post_, under Nov. 12, 1775. Boscovitch, the Jesuit astronomer, was a professor in the University of Pavia. When Dr. Burney visited him, 'he complained very much of the silence of the English astronomers, who answer none of his letters.' Burney's _Tour in France and Italy_, p. 92.

[368] See _post_, in 1781, the _Life of Lyttelton_.

[369] The first of Macpherson's forgeries was _Fragments of Ancient Poetry collected in the Highlands_. Edinburgh, 1760. In 1762, he published in London, _The Works of Ossian, the son of Fingal_, 2 vols. Vol. i. contained _Fingal, an Ancient Epic Poem_, in six Books. See _post_, Jan 1775.

[370] Horace, _Ars Poetica_, l. 41.

[371] Perhaps Johnson had some ill-will towards attorneys, such as he had towards excisemen (_ante_, i. 36, note 5 and 294). In _London_, which was published in May, 1738, he couples them with street robbers:

'Their ambush here relentless ruffians lay, And here the fell attorney prowls for prey.'

_Works_, i. 1. In a paper in the _Gent. Mag_. for following June (p. 287), written, I have little doubt, by him, the profession is this savagely attacked:--'Our ancestors, in ancient times, had some regard to the moral character of the person sent to represent them in their national assemblies, and would have shewn some degree of resentment or indignation, had their votes been asked for murderer, an adulterer, a know oppressor, an hireling evidence, an attorney, a gamester, or pimp.' In the _Life of Blackmere_ (_Works_, viii. 36) he has a sly hit at the profession. 'Sir Richard Blackmore was the son of Robert Blackmore, styled by Wood gentleman, and supposed to have been an attorney.' We may compare Goldsmith's lines in _Retaliation_:--'Then what was his failing? come tell it, and burn ye,--

'He was, could he help it? a special attorney.'

See also _post_, under June 16, 1784.

[372] See _ante_, i. Appendix F.

[373] Dr. Maxwell is perhaps here quoting the _Idler_, No. 69, where Johnson, speaking of _Bioethics on the Confronts of Philosophy_, calls it 'the book which seems to have been the favourite of the middle ages.'

[374] Yet it is Murphy's tragedy of _Zenobia_ that Mrs. Piozzi writes (_Anec_. p. 280):--'A gentleman carried Dr. Johnson his tragedy, which because he loved the author, he took, and it lay about our rooms some time. "Which answer did you give your friend, Sir?" said I, after the book had been called for. "I told him," replied he, "that there was too _Tig and Terry_ in it." Seeing me laugh most violently, "Why, what would'st have, child?" said he. "I looked at nothing but the _dramatis_ [_personae_], and there was _Tigranes_ and _Tiridates_, or _Teribaeus_, or such stuff. A man can tell but what he knows, and I never got any further than the _first_ pages."' In _Zenobia_ two and Tigranes.

[375] Hume was one who had this idle dream. Shortly before his death one of his friends wrote:--'He still maintains that the national debt must be the ruin of Britain; and laments that the two most civilised nations, the English and French, should be on the decline; and the barbarians, the Goths and Vandals of Germany and Russia, should be rising in power and renown.' J. H. Burton's _Hume_, ii. 497.

[376] Hannah More was with Dr. Kennicott at his death. 'Thus closed a life,' she wrote (_Memoirs_, i. 289), 'the last thirty years of which were honourably spent in collating the Hebrew Scriptures.' See also Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 16, 1773.

[377] Johnson (_Works_, viii. 467) says that Mallet, in return for what he wrote against Byng, 'had a considerable pension bestowed upon him, which he retained to his death.' See _ante_, i. 268.

[378] See _ante_, ii. 76.

[379] 'It is dangerous for a man and woman to suspend their fate upon each other at a time when opinions are fixed, and habits are established; when friendships have been contracted on both sides; when life has been planned into method, and the mind has long enjoyed the contemplation of its own prospects.' _Rasselas_, ch. xxix.

[380] Malone records that 'Cooper was round and fat. Dr. Warton, one day, when dining with Johnson, urged in his favour that he was, at least, very well informed, and a good scholar. "Yes," said Johnson, "it cannot be denied that he has good materials for playing the fool, and he makes abundant use of them."' Prior's _Malone_, p. 428. See _post_, Sept. 15, 1777, note.

[381] See _post_, Sept 21, 1777, and Boswell's _Hebrides_, Sept. 22, 1773.

[382] But see _ante_, i. 299, where Johnson owned that his happier days had come last.

[383]

'In youth alone unhappy mortals live, But ah! the mighty bliss is fugitive; Discolour'd sickness, anxious labours come, And age, and death's inexorable doom.'

DRYDEN. Virgil, _Georgics_, iii. 66. In the first edition Dr. Maxwell's _Collectanea_ ended here. What follows was given in the second edition in _Additions received after the second edition was printed_, i. v.

[384] To Glaucus. Clarke's translation is:--'Ut semper fortissime rem gererem, et superior virtute essem aliis.' _Iliad_, vi. 208. Cowper's version is:--

'That I should outstrip always all mankind In worth and valour.'

[385] Maxwell calls him his old master, because Sharpe was Master of the Temple when Maxwell was assistant preacher. CROKER.

[386] Dr. T. Campbell, in his _Survey of the South of Ireland_, p. 185, writes: 'In England the meanest cottager is better fed, better lodged, and better dressed than the most opulent farmers here.' See post, Oct. 19, 1779.

[387] In the vice-royalty of the Duke of Bedford, which began in Dec. 1756, 'in order to encourage tillage a law was passed granting bounties on the land carriage of corn and flour to the metropolis.' Lecky's _Hist. of Eng_. ii. 435. In 1773-4 a law was passed granting bounties upon the export of Irish corn to foreign countries. _Ib_ iv. 415.

[388] See _ante_, i. 434.

[389] See _ante_, ii. 121. Lord Kames, in his _Sketches of the History of Man_, published in 1774, says:--'In Ireland to this day goods exported are loaded with a high duty, without even distinguishing made work from raw materials; corn, for example, fish, butter, horned cattle, leather, &c. And, that nothing may escape, all goods exported that are not contained in the book of rates, pay five per cent, _ad valorem_.' ii. 413. These export duties were selfishly levied in what was supposed to be the interest of England.

[390] 'At this time [1756] appeared Brown's _Estimate_, a book now remembered only by the allusions in Cowper's _Table Talk_ [Cowper's _Poems_, ed. 1786, i. 20] and in Burke's _Letters on a Regicide Peace_ [Payne's _Burke_, p. 9]. It was universally read, admired, and believed. The author fully convinced his readers that they were a race of cowards and scoundrels; that nothing could save them; that they were on the point of being enslaved by their enemies, and that they richly deserved their fate.' Macaulay's _Essays_, ii. 183. Dr. J.H. Burton says:--'Dr. Brown's book is said to have run to a seventh edition in a few months. It is rather singular that the edition marked as the seventh has precisely the same matter in each page, and the same number of pages as the first.' _Life of Hume_, ii. 23. Brown wrote two tragedies, _Barbarossa_ and _Athelstan_, both of which Garrick brought out at Drury Lane. In _Barbarossa_ Johnson observed 'that there were two improprieties; in the first place, the use of a bell is unknown to the Mahometans; and secondly, Otway had tolled a bell before Dr. Brown, and we are not to be made April fools twice by the same trick.' Murphy's _Garrick_, p. 173. Brown's vanity is shown in a letter to Garrick (_Garrick Corres_. i. 220) written on Jan. 19, 1766, in which he talks of going to St. Petersburg, and drawing up a System of Legislation for the Russian Empire. In the following September, in a fit of madness, he made away with himself.

[391] See _post_, May 8, 1781.

[392] Horace Walpole, writing in May, 1764, says:--'The Earl of Northumberland returned from Ireland, where his profusion and ostentation had been so great that it seemed to lay a dangerous precedent for succeeding governors.' _Memoirs of the Reign of George III_, i. 417. He was created Duke in 1766. For some pleasant anecdotes about this nobleman and Goldsmith, see Goldsmith's _Misc. Works_, i. 66, and Forster's _Goldsmith_, i. 379, and ii. 227.

[393] Johnson thus writes of him (_Works_, viii. 207):--'The Archbishop of Dublin gave him at first some disturbance in the exercise of his jurisdiction; but it was soon discovered that between prudence and integrity he was seldom in the wrong; and that, when he was right, his spirit did not easily yield to opposition.' He adds: 'He delivered Ireland from plunder and oppression, and showed that wit confederated with truth had such force as authority was unable to resist. He said truly of himself that Ireland "was his debtor." It was from the time when he first began to patronise the Irish, that they may date their riches and prosperity.' _Ib_ p. 319. Pope, in his _Imitations of Horace_, II. i. 221, says:--

'Let Ireland tell how wit upheld her cause, Her trade supported, and supplied her laws; And leave on Swift this grateful verse engraved, "The rights a Court attacked, a poet saved."'

[394] These lines have been discovered by the author's second son in the _London Magazine_ for July 1732, where they form part of a poem on _Retirement_, copied, with some slight variations, from one of Walsh's smaller poems, entitled _The Retirement_. They exhibit another proof that Johnson retained in his memory fragments of neglected poetry. In quoting verses of that description, he appears by a slight variation to have sometimes given them a moral turn, and to have dexterously adapted them to his own sentiments, where the original had a very different tendency. In 1782, when he was at Brighthelmstone, he repeated to Mr. Metcalfe, some verses, as very characteristic of a celebrated historian [Gibbon]. They are found among some anonymous poems appended to the second volume of a collection frequently printed by Lintot, under the title of _Pope's Miscellanies_:--

'See how the wand'ring Danube flows,
Realms and religions parting;
A friend to all true Christian foes,
To Peter, Jack, and Martin.
Now Protestant, and Papist now,
Not constant long to either,
At length an infidel does grow,
And ends his journey neither.
Thus many a youth I've known set out,
Half Protestant, half Papist,
And rambling long the world about,
Turn infidel or atheist.'

MALONE. See _post_, 1780, in Mr. Langton's _Collection_, and Boswell's _Hebrides_ Aug. 27, and Oct. 28, 1773.

[395] Juvenal, _Sat_. iii. 1. 2.

'Yet still my calmer thoughts his choice commend.'

Johnson's _London_, 1. 3.

[396] It was published without the authors name.

[397] 'What have we acquired? What but ... an island thrown aside from human use; ... an island which not the southern savages have dignified with habitation.' _Works_, vi. 198.

[398] 'It is wonderful with what coolness and indifference the greater part of mankind see war commenced. Those that hear of it at a distance, or read of it in books, but have never presented its evils to their minds, consider it as little more than a splendid game, a proclamation, an army, a battle, and a triumph. Some, indeed, must perish in the most successful field, but they die upon the bed of honour, "resign their lives, amidst the joys of conquest, and, filled with England's glory, smile in death." The life of a modern soldier is ill-represented by heroic fiction. War has means of destruction more formidable than the cannon and the sword.

Of the thousands and ten thousands that perished in our late contests with France and Spain, a very small part ever felt the stroke of an enemy; the rest languished in tents and ships, amidst damps and putrefaction; pale, torpid, spiritless, and helpless; gasping and groaning, unpitied among men made obdurate by long continuance of hopeless misery; and were at last whelmed in pits, or heaved into the ocean, without notice and without remembrance. By incommodious encampments and unwholesome stations, where courage is useless, and enterprise impracticable, fleets are silently dispeopled, and armies sluggishly melted away.' _Works_, vi. 199.