Chapter XXIV: Part 24

[1134] This darkness is seen in his letters. He wrote 'June 3, 1775. It required some philosophy to bear the change from England to Scotland. The unpleasing tone, the rude familiarity, the barren conversation of those whom I found here, in comparison with what I had left, really hurt my feelings ... The General Assembly is sitting, and I practise at its Bar. There is _de facto_ something low and coarse in such employment, though on paper it is a Court of _Supreme Judicature_; but guineas must be had ... Do you know it requires more than ordinary spirit to do what I am to do this very morning: I am to go to the General Assembly and arraign a judgement pronounced last year by Dr. Robertson, John Home, and a good many more of them, and they are to appear on the other side. To speak well, when I despise both the cause and the Judges, is difficult: but I believe I shall do wonderfully. I look forward with aversion to the little, dull labours of the Court of Sessions. You see, Temple, I have my troubles as well as you have. My promise under the venerable yew has kept me sober.' _Letters of Boswell_, p. 198. On June 19, he is 'vexed to think myself a coarse labourer in an obscure corner.... Mr. Hume says there will in all probability be a change of the Ministry soon, which he regrets. Oh, Temple, while they change so often, how does one feel an ambition to have a share in the great department! ... My father is most unhappily dissatisfied with me. He harps on my going over Scotland with a brute (think how shockingly erroneous!) and wandering (or some such phrase) to London!' _Ib_ p. 201. 'Aug. 12. I have had a pretty severe return this summer of that melancholy, or hypochondria, which is inherent in my constitution.... While afflicted with melancholy, all the doubts which have ever disturbed thinking men come upon me. I awake in the night dreading annihilation, or being thrown into some horrible state of being.' He recounts a complimentary letter he had received from Lord Mayor Wilkes, and continues:--'Tell me, my dear Temple, if a man who receives so many marks of more than ordinary consideration can be satisfied to drudge in an obscure corner, where the manners of the people are disagreeable to him.' _Ib_ p. 209.

[1135] He was absent from the end of May till some time in August. He wrote from Oxford on June 1:--'Don't suppose that I live here as we live at Streatham. I went this morning to the chapel at _six_.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 223. He was the guest of Mr. Coulson, a Fellow of University College. On June 6, he wrote:--'Such is the uncertainty of all human things that Mr. Coulson has quarrelled with me. He says I raise the laugh upon him, and he is an independent man, and all he has is his own, and he is not used to such things.' _Ib_ p. 226. An eye-witness told Mr. Croker that 'Coulson was going out on a country living, and talking of it with the same pomp as to Lord Stowell.' [He had expressed to him his doubts whether, after living so long in the _great world_, he might not grow weary of the comparative retirement of a country parish. Croker's _Boswell_, p. 425.] Johnson chose to imagine his becoming an archdeacon, and made himself merry at Coulson's expense. At last they got to warm words, and Johnson concluded the debate by exclaiming emphatically--'Sir, having meant you no offence, I will make you no apology.' _Ib_ p. 458. The quarrel was made up, for the next day he wrote:--'Coulson and I are pretty well again.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 229.

[1136] Boswell wrote to Temple on Sept. 2:--'It is hardly credible how difficult it is for a man of my sensibility to support existence in the family where I now am. My father, whom I really both respect and affectionate (if that is a word, for it is a different feeling from that which is expressed by _love_, which I can say of you from my soul), is so different from me. We _divaricate_ so much, as Dr. Johnson said, that I am often hurt when, I dare say, he means no harm: and he has a method of treating me which makes me feel myself like a _timid boy_, which to _Boswell_ (comprehending all that my character does in my own imagination and in that of a wonderful number of mankind) is intolerable. His wife too, whom in my conscience I cannot condemn for any capital bad quality, is so narrow-minded, and, I don't know how, so set upon keeping him under her own management, and so suspicious and so sourishly tempered that it requires the utmost exertion of practical philosophy to keep myself quiet. I however have done so all this week to admiration: nay, I have appeared good-humoured; but it has cost me drinking a considerable quantity of strong beer to dull my faculties.' _Letters of Boswell_, p. 215.

[1137] Voltaire wrote of HA(C)nault's _AbrA(C)gA(C) de l' Histoire de la France_:--'Il a A(C)tA(C) dans l'histoire ce que Fontenelle a A(C)tA(C) dans la philosophie. Il l'a rendue familiA"re.' Voltaire's _Works_, xvii. 99. With a quotation from HA(C)nault, Carlyle begins his _French Revolution_.

[1138] My _Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides_, which that lady read in the original manuscript. BOSWELL. Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale, 'May 22, 1775:--I am not sorry that you read Boswell's _Journal_. Is it not a merry piece? There is much in it about poor me.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 220. 'June 11, 1775. You never told me, and I omitted to inquire, how you were entertained by Boswell's _Journal_. _One would think the man had been hired to be a spy upon me_. He was very diligent, and caught opportunities of writing from time to time.' _Ib_ p. 233. I suspect that the words I have marked by italics are not Johnson's, but are Mrs. Piozzi's interpolation.

[1139] 'In my heart of _heart_.' _Hamlet_, act iii. sc. 2.

[1140] Another parcel of Lord Hailes's _Annals of Scotland_. BOSWELL.

[1141] Where Sir Joshua Reynolds lived. BOSWELL.

[1142] Johnson's birthday. In _Pr. and Med_. p. 143, is a prayer which was, he writes, 'composed at Calais in a sleepless night, and used before the morn at NA'tre Dame.'

[1143] See _ante_, i. 243, note 3.

[1144] 'While Johnson was in France, he was generally very resolute in speaking Latin.' _Post_, under Nov. 12, 1775.

[1145] Miss Thrale. BOSWELL.

[1146] In his _Journal_ he records 'their meals are gross' (_post_, Oct. 10). We may doubt therefore Mrs. Piozzi's statement that he said of the French: 'They have few sentiments, but they express them neatly; they have little in meat too, but they dress it well.' Piozzi's _Anec_. p. 102.

[1147] See _ante_, i. 362, note 1.

[1148] Boswell wrote to Temple:--'You know, my dearest friend, of what importance this is to me; of what importance it is to the family of Auchinleck, _which you may be well convinced is my supreme object in this world_.' _Letters of Boswell_, p. 217. Alexander Boswell was killed in a duel in 1822.

[1149] This alludes to my old feudal principle of preferring male to female succession. BOSWELL. See _post_, under Jan. 10, 1776.

[1150] He wrote to Dr. Taylor on the same day:--'I came back last Tuesday from France. Is not mine a kind of life turned upside down? Fixed to a spot when I was young, and roving the world when others are contriving to sit still, I am wholly unsettled. I am a kind of ship with a wide sail, and without an anchor.' _Notes and Queries_. 6th S., v. 422.

[1151] There can be no doubt that many years previous to 1775 he corresponded with this lady, who was his step-daughter, but none of his earlier letters to her have been preserved. BOSWELL. Many of these earlier letters were printed by Malone and Croker in later editions. See i. 512.

[1152] When on their way to Wales, July 7, 1774, _post_, vol. v.

[1153] Smollett wrote (_Travels_, i. 88):--'Notwithstanding the gay disposition of the French, their houses are all gloomy. After all it is in England only where we must look for cheerful apartments, gay furniture, neatness, and convenience.'

[1154] Son of Mrs. Johnson, by her first husband. BOSWELL.

[1155] 'A gentleman said, "Surely that Vanessa must be an extraordinary woman, that could inspire the Dean to write so finely upon her." Mrs. Johnson [Stella] smiled, and answered "that she thought that point not quite so clear; for it was well known the Dean could write finely upon a broomstick."' Johnson's Works, viii. 210.

[1156] Horace Walpole wrote from Paris this autumn:--'I have not yet had time to visit the Hotel du Chatelet.' _Letters_, vi. 260. On July 31st, 1789, writing of the violence of the mob, he says:--'The hotel of the Due de Chatelet, lately built and superb, has been assaulted, and the furniture sold by auction.' _Ib_ ix. 202.

[1157] See _post_, under Nov. 12, 1775, note, and June 25, 1784.

[1158] The Prior of the Convent of the Benedictines where Johnson had a cell appropriated to him. _Post_, Oct. 31, and under Nov. 12.

[1159] The rest of this paragraph appears to be a minute of what was told by Captain Irwin. BOSWELL.

[1160] Melchior Canus, a celebrated Spanish Dominican, who died at Toledo, in 1560. He wrote a treatise _De Locis Theologicis_, in twelve books. BOSWELL.

[1161] D'Argenson's. CROKER.

[1162] See Macaulay's _Essays_, i. 355, and Mr. Croker's answer in his note on this passage. His notion that 'this book was exhibited purposely on the lady's table, in the expectation that her English visitors would think it a literary curiosity,' seems absurd. He does not choose to remember the '_Bibl. des FA(C)es_ and other books.' Since I wrote this note Mr. Napier has published an edition of Boswell, in which this question is carefully examined (ii. 550). He sides with Macaulay.

[1163] 'Si quelque invention peut supplA(C)er A la connaissance qui nous est refusA(C)e des longitudes sur la mer, c'est celle du plus habile horloger de France (M. Leroi) qui dispute cette invention A l'Angleterre.' Voltaire, _SiA"cle de Louis XV_, ch. 43.

[1164] The _Palais Marchand_ was properly only the stalls which were placed along some of the galleries of the Palais. They have been all swept away in Louis Philippe's restoration of the Palais. CROKER.

[1165] 'Petit siA"ge de bois sur lequel on faisait asseoir, pour les interroger, ceux qui A(C)taient accusA(C)s d'un dA(C)lit pouvant faire encourir une peine afflictive.' LITTRA%.

[1166] The Conciergerie, before long to be crowded with the victims of the Revolution.

[1167] This passage, which so many think superstitious, reminds me of Archbishop Laud's Diary. BOSWELL. Laud, for instance, on Oct. 27, 1640, records:--'In my upper study hung my picture taken by the life; and coming in, I found it fallen down upon the face, and lying on the floor, the string being broken by which it was hanged against the wall. I am almost every day threatened with my ruin in Parliament. God grant this be no omen.' Perhaps there was nothing superstitious in Johnson's entry. He may have felt ill in mind or body, and dreaded to become worse.

[1168] For a brief account of FrA(C)ron, father and son, see Carlyle's _French Revolution_, part ii. bk. 1. ch. 4.

[1169] A round table, the centre of which descended by machinery to a lower floor, so that supper might be served without the presence of servants. It was invented by Lewis XV. during the favour of Madame du Barri. CROKER.

[1170] See _ante_, i. 363, note 3.

[1171] Before the Revolution the passage from the garden of the Tuileries into the Place Louis XV. was over a _pont tournant_. CROKER.

[1172] The niece of Arabella Fermor, the Belinda of the _Rape of the Lock_. Johnson thus mentions this lady (_Works_, viii. 246):--'At Paris, a few years ago, a niece of Mrs. Fermor, who presided in an English convent, mentioned Pope's works with very little gratitude, rather as an insult than an honour.' She is no doubt the Lady Abbess mentioned _post_, March 15, 1776. She told Mrs. Piozzi in 1784 'that she believed there was but little comfort to be found in a house that harboured poets; for that she remembered Mr. Pope's praise made her aunt very troublesome and conceited, while his numberless caprices would have employed ten servants to wait on him.' Piozzi's _Journey_, i. 20.

[1173] Mrs. Thrale wrote, on Sept. 18, 1777:--'When Mr. Thrale dismisses me, I am to take refuge among the Austin Nuns, and study Virgil with dear Miss Canning.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 374.

[1174] _Pensionnaires_, pupils who boarded in the convent.

[1175] He brought back a snuff-box for Miss Porter. _Ante_, p. 387.

[1176] 63 livres = AL2 12s. 6d.

[1177] Torture-chamber. See _ante_, i. 467, note 1.

[1178] 'Au parlement de Paris la chambre chargA(C)e des affaires criminelles.' LITTRA%.

[1179] The grandson was the Duke d'Enghien who was put to death by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1804.

[1180] His tender affection for his departed wife, of which there are many evidences in his _Prayers and Meditations_, appears very feelingly in this passage. BOSWELL. 'On many occasions I think what she [his wife] would have said or done. When I saw the sea at Brighthelmstone, I wished for her to have seen it with me.' _Pr. and Med_. p. 91.

[1181] See _post_, p. 402.

[1182] See _post_, iii. 89.

[1183] Dr. Moore (_Travels in France_, i. 31) says that in Paris, 'those who cannot afford carriages skulk behind pillars, or run into shops, to avoid being crushed by the coaches, which are driven as near the wall as the coachman pleases.' Only on the Pont Neuf, and the Pont Royal, and the quays between them were there, he adds, foot-ways.

[1184] Lewis XVI.

[1185] The King's sister, who was guillotined in the Reign of Terror.

[1186] See p. 391. BOSWELL.

[1187] 'When at Versailles, the people showed us the Theatre. As we stood on the stage looking at some machinery for playhouse purposes; "Now we are here, what shall we act, Mr. Johnson:--_The Englishman in Paris_"? "No, no," replied he, "we will try to act _Harry the Fifth_."' Piozzi's _Anec_. p. 101. _The Englishman in Paris_ is a comedy by Foote.

[1188] This epithet should be applied to this animal, with one bunch. BOSWELL.

[1189] He who commanded the troops at the execution of Lewis XVI.

[1190] 1462.

[1191] I cannot learn of any book of this name. Perhaps Johnson saw _Durandi Rationale Officiorum Divinorum_, which was printed in 1459, one year later than Johnson mentions. A copy of this he had seen at Blenheim in 1774. His _Journey into North Wales_, Sept. 22.

[1192] He means, I suppose, that he read these different pieces while he remained in the library. BOSWELL.

[1193] Johnson in his _Dictionary_ defines _Apartment_ as _A room; a set of rooms_.

[1194] Smollett (_Travels_, i. 85) writes of these temporary servants:--'You cannot conceive with what eagerness and dexterity these rascally valets exert themselves in pillaging strangers. There is always one ready in waiting on your arrival, who begins by assisting your own servant to unload your baggage, and interests himself in your own affairs with such artful officiousness that you will find it difficult to shake him off.'

[1195] Livres--francs we should now say.

[1196] It was here that Rousseau got rid of his children. 'Je savais que l'A(C)ducation pour eux la moins perilleuse A(C)tait celle des enfans trouvA(C)s; et je les y mis.' _Les Reveries, ix'me promenade_.

[1197] Dr. Franklin, in 1785, wrote:--'I am credibly informed that nine-tenths of them die there pretty soon.' _Memoirs_, iii. 187. Lord Kames (_Sketches of the History of Man_, iii. 91) says:--'The Paris almanac for the year 1768 mentions that there were baptised 18,576 infants, of whom the foundling-hospital received 6025.'

[1198] St. Germain des PrA(C)s. Better known as the Prison of the Abbaye.

[1199] I have looked in vain into De Bure, Meerman, Mattaire, and other typographical books, for the two editions of the _Catholicon_, which Dr. Johnson mentions here, with _names_ which I cannot make out. I read 'one by _Latinius_, one by _Boedinus_.' I have deposited the original MS. in the British Museum, where the curious may see it. My grateful acknowledgements are due to Mr. Planta for the trouble he was pleased to take in aiding my researches. BOSWELL. A Mr. Planta is mentioned in Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, v. 39.

[1200] Friar Wilkes visited Johnson in May 1776. _Piozzi Letters_, i. 336. On Sept. 18, 1777, Mrs. Thrale wrote to Johnson:--'I have got some news that will please you now. Here is an agreeable friend come from Paris, whom you were very fond of when we were there--the Prior of our English Benedictine Convent, Mr. Cowley ... He inquires much for you; and says Wilkes is very well, No. 45, as they call him in the Convent. A cell is always kept ready for your use he tells me.' _Ib_ p. 373.

[1201] The writing is so bad here, that the names of several of the animals could not be decyphered without much more acquaintance with natural history than I possess.--Dr. Blagden, with his usual politeness, most obligingly examined the MS. To that gentleman, and to Dr. Gray, of the British Museum, who also very readily assisted me, I beg leave to express my best thanks. BOSWELL

[1202] It is thus written by Johnson, from the French pronunciation of _fossane_. It should be observed, that the person who shewed this Menagerie was mistaken in supposing the _fossane_ and the Brasilian weasel to be the same, the _fossane_ being a different animal, and a native of Madagascar. I find them, however, upon one plate in Pennant's _Synopsis of Quadrupeds_. BOSWELL.

[1203] How little Johnson relished this talk is shewn by his letter to Mrs. Thrale of May 1, 1780, and by her answer. He wrote:--'The Exhibition, how will you do, either to see or not to see? The Exhibition is eminently splendid. There is contour, and keeping, and grace, and expression, and all the varieties of artificial excellence.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. III. She answered:--'When did I ever plague about contour, and grace, and expression? I have dreaded them all three since that hapless day at Compiegne when you teased me so.' _Ib_ p. 116

[1204] '_Nef_, (old French from _nave_) _the body of a church_.' Johnson's _Dictionary_.

[1205] My worthy and ingenious friend, Mr. Andrew Lumisden, by his accurate acquaintance with France, enabled me to make out many proper names, which Dr. Johnson had written indistinctly, and sometimes spelt erroneously. Boswell. Lumisden is mentioned in Boswell's _Hebrides_, Sept. 13.

[1206] Baretti, in a marginal note on _Piozzi Letters_, i. 142, says that 'Johnson saw next to nothing of Paris.' On p. 159 he adds:--'He noticed the country so little that he scarcely spoke of it ever after.' He shews, however, his ignorance of Johnson's doings by saying that 'in France he never touched a pen.'

[1207] Hume's reception in 1763 was very different. He wrote to Adam Smith:--'I have been three days at Paris, and two at Fontainebleau, and have everywhere met with the most extraordinary honours which the most exorbitant vanity could wish or desire.' The Dauphin's three children, afterwards Lewis XVI, Lewis XVIII, and Charles X, had each to make a set speech of congratulation. He was the favourite of the most exclusive coteries. J.H. Burton's _Hume_, ii. 168, 177, 208. But at that date, sceptical philosophy was the rage.

[1208] Horace Walpole wrote from Paris in 1771 (_Letters_, v. 317-19):--'The distress here is incredible, especially at Court.... The middling and common people are not much richer than Job when he had lost everything but his patience.' Rousseau wrote of the French in 1777:--'Cette nation qui se prA(C)tend si gaie montre peu cette gaitA(C) dans ses jeux. Souvent j'allais jadis aux guinguettes pour y voir danser le menu peuple; mais ses danses A(C)taient si maussades, son maintien si dolent, si gauche, que j'en sortais plutot contristA(C) que rA(C)joui.' _Les RA(C)veries, IXme. promenade_. Baretti (_Journey to Genoa_, iv. 146) denies that the French 'are entitled to the appellation of cheerful.' 'Provence,' he says (_ib_. 148), 'is the only province in which you see with some sort of frequency the rustic assemblies roused up to cheerfulness by the _fifre_ and the _tambourin_.' Mrs. Piozzi describes the absence of 'the happy middle state' abroad. 'As soon as Dover is left behind, every man seems to belong to some other man, and no man to himself.' Piozzi's _Journey_, ii. 341. Voltaire, in his review of _Julia Mandeville_ (_Works_, xliii. 364), says:--'Pour peu qu'un roman, une tragA(C)die, une comA(C)die ait de succA"s a Londres, on en fait trois et quatre A(C)ditions en peu de mois; c'est que l'A(C)tat mitoyen est plus riche et plus instruit en Angleterre qu'en France, &c.' But Barry, the painter (_post_, May 17, 1783), in 1766, described to Burke, 'the crowds of busy contented people which cover (as one may say) the whole face of the country.' But he was an Irishman comparing France with Ireland. 'They make a strong, but melancholy contrast to a miserable ------ which I cannot help thinking of sometimes. You will not be at any loss to know that I mean Ireland.' Barry's _Works_, i. 57. 'Hume,' says Dr. J. H. Burton, 'in his _Essay on The Parties of Great Britain_ (published in 1741), alludes to the absence of a middle class in Scotland, where he says, there are only "two ranks of men, gentlemen who have some fortune and education, and the meanest starving poor; without any considerable number of the middling rank of men, which abounds more in England, both in cities and in the country, than in any other quarter of the world."' _Life of Hume_, i. 198. I do not find this passage in the edition of Hume's _Essays_ of 1770.

[1209] Yet Smollett wrote in 1763:--'All manner of butcher's meat and poultry are extremely good in Paris. The beef is excellent.' He adds, 'I can by no means relish their cookery.' Smollett's _Travels_, i. 86. Horace Walpole, in 1765, wrote from Amiens on his way to Paris:--'I am almost famished for want of clean victuals, and comfortable tea, and bread and butter.' _Letters_, iv. 401. Goldsmith, in 1770, wrote from Paris:--'As for the meat of this country I can scarce eat it, and though we pay two good shillings an head for our dinner, I find it all so tough, that I have spent less time with my knife than my pick-tooth.' Forster's _Goldsmith_, ii. 219.

[1210] Walpole calls Paris 'the ugliest, beastliest town in the universe,' and describes the indelicacy of the talk of women of the first rank. _Letters_, iv. 435. See _post_, May 13, 1778, and under Aug. 29, 1783.

[1211] Madame du Boccage, according to Miss Reynolds, whose authority was Baretti. Croker's _Boswell_, p. 467. See _post_, June 25, 1784.

[1212] In Edinburgh, Johnson threw a glass of lemonade out of the window because the waiter had put the sugar into it 'with his greasy fingers.' Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 14.

[1213] Mrs. Thrale wrote to Johnson in 1782:--'When we were in France we could form little judgement [of the spread of refinement], as our time was passed chiefly among English; yet I recollect that one fine lady, who entertained us very splendidly, put her mouth to the teapot, and blew in the spout when it did not pour freely.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 247.

[1214] That he did not continue exactly as in London is stated by Boswell himself. 'He was furnished with a Paris-made wig of handsome construction,' (_Post_, April 28, 1778). His _Journal_ shews that he bought articles of dress (_ante_, p. 398). Hawkins (_Life_, p. 517) says that 'he yielded to the remonstrances of his friends so far as to dress in a suit of black and a Bourgeois wig, but resisted their importunity to wear ruffles. By a note in his diary it appears that he laid out near thirty pounds in clothes for this journey.' A story told by Foote we may believe as little as we please. 'Foote is quite impartial,' said Johnson, 'for he tells lies of everybody.' _Post_, under March 15, 1776.

[1215] If Johnson's Latin was understood by foreigners in France, but not in England, the explanation may be found in his _Life of Milton_ (_Works_, vii. 99), where he says:--'He who travels, if he speaks Latin, may so soon learn the sounds which every native gives it, that he need make no provision before his journey; and if strangers visit us, it is their business to practise such conformity to our modes as they expect from us in their own countries.' Johnson was so sturdy an Englishman that likely enough, as he was in London, he would not alter his pronunciation to suit his Excellency's ear. In Priestley's _Works_, xxiii. 233, a conversation is reported in which Dr. Johnson argued for the Italian method of pronouncing Latin.

[1216] See _ante_, ii. 80.

[1217] As Mme. de Boufflers is mentioned in the next paragraph, Boswell no doubt, wishes to shew that the letter was addressed to her. She was the mistress of the Prince of Conti. She understood English, and was the correspondent of Hume. There was also a Marquise de Boufflers, mistress of old King Stanislaus.

[1218] In the _Piozzi Letters_ (i. 34), this letter is dated May 16, 1771; in Boswell's first and second editions, July 16, 1771; in the third edition, July 16, 1775. In May, 1771, Johnson, so far as there is anything to shew, was in London. On July 16, both in 1771 and 1775, he was in Ashbourne. One of Hume's Letters (_Private Corres_., p. 283), dated April 17, 1775, shews that Mme. de Boufflers was at that time 'speaking of coming to England.'

[1219] Mme. de Boufflers was in England in the summer of 1763. Jesse's _Selwyn_, i. 235.

[1220] Boscovich, a learned Jesuit, was born at Ragusa in 1711, and died in 1787. He visited London in 1760, and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. Chalmers's _Biog. Dict_. See _ante_, p. 125.

[1221] See _ante_, p. 288.

[1222] Four years later Johnson thus spoke to Miss Burney of her father:--'"I love Burney; my heart goes out to meet him." "He is not ungrateful, Sir," cried I; "for most heartily does he love you." "Does he, Madam? I am surprised at that." "Why, Sir? Why should you have doubted it?" "Because, Madam, Dr. Burney is a man for all the world to love: it is but natural to love him." I could have almost cried with delight at this cordial, unlaboured _A(C)loge_.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, i. 196.

[1223] 'Though a sepulchral inscription is professedly a panegyrick, and therefore not confined to historical impartiality, yet it ought always to be written with regard to truth. No man ought to be commended for virtues which he never possessed, but whoever is curious to know his faults must inquire after them in other places.' Johnson's _Works_, v. 265. See _post_, April 24, 1779.

[1224] See _ante_, i. 46.

[1225] See _post_, iii. 12, and Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 22.

[1226] Johnson's Dick Wormwood, in _The Idler_, No. 83, a man 'whose sole delight is to find everything wrong, triumphs when he talks on the present system of education, and tells us with great vehemence that we are learning words when we should learn things.' In the _Life of Milton_ (_Works_, vii, 75), Johnson writes:--'It is told that in the art of education Milton performed wonders; and a formidable list is given of the authors, Greek and Latin, that were read in Aldersgate-street, by youth between ten and fifteen or sixteen years of age. Those who tell or receive these stories should consider, that nobody can be taught faster than he can learn. The speed of the horseman must be limited by the power of the horse.' He advised Boswell 'not to _refine_ in the education of his children. You must do as other people do.' _Post_, iii. 169. Yet, in his _Life of Barretier_ (_Works_, vi. 380), he says:--'The first languages which he learnt were the French, German, and Latin, which he was taught, not in the common way, by a multitude of definitions, rules, and exceptions, which fatigue the attention and burden the memory, without any use proportionate to the time which they require and the disgust which they create. The method by which he was instructed was easy and expeditious, and therefore pleasing. He learnt them all in the same manner, and almost at the same time, by conversing in them indifferently with his father.'

[1227] Miss Aikin, better known as Mrs. Barbauld. Johnson uses _Presbyterian_ where we should use _Unitarian_. 'The Unitarians of the present day [1843] are the representatives of that branch of the early Nonconformists who received the denomination of Presbyterians; and they are still known by that name.' _Penny Cyclo_. xxvi. 6.

[1228] Othello, act ii. sc. 1.

[1229] He quotes Barbauld's _Lessons for Children_ (p. 68, ed. of 1878). Mrs. Piozzi (_Anec_. p. 16), speaking of books for children says:--'Mrs. Barbauld had his best praise; no man was more struck than Mr. Johnson with voluntary descent from possible splendour to painful duty.' Mrs. Piozzi alludes to Johnson's praise of Dr. Watts:--'Every man acquainted with the common principles of human action, will look with veneration on the writer, who is at one time combating Locke, and at another making a catechism for children in their fourth year. A voluntary descent from the dignity of science is perhaps the hardest lesson that humility can teach.' _Works_, viii. 384. He praised Milton also, who, when 'writing _Paradise Lost_, could condescend from his elevation to rescue children from the perplexity of grammatical confusion, and the trouble of lessons unnecessarily repeated.' _Ib_ vii. 99. Mrs. Barbauld did what Swift said Gay had shown could be done. 'One may write things to a child without being childish.' Swift's _Works_, xvii. 221. In her _Advertisement_, she says:--'The task is humble, but not mean; to plant the first idea in a human mind can be no dishonour to any hand.' 'Ethicks, or morality,' wrote Johnson, 'is one of the studies which ought to begin with the first glimpse of reason, and only end with life itself.' _Works_, v. 243. This might have been the motto of her book. As the _Advertisement_ was not published till 1778 (Barbauld's _Works_, ii. 19) it is possible that Johnson's criticism had reached her, and that it was meant as an answer. Among her pupils were William Taylor of Norwich, Sir William Gell, and the first Lord Denman (_ib_. i. xxv-xxx). Mrs. Barbauld bore Johnson no ill-will. In her _Eighteen Hundred and Eleven_, she describes some future pilgrims 'from the Blue Mountains or Ontario's Lake,' coming to view 'London's faded glories.'

'With throbbing bosoms shall the wanderers tread The hallowed mansions of the silent dead, Shall enter the long aisle and vaulted dome Where genius and where valour find a home; Bend at each antique shrine, and frequent turn To clasp with fond delight some sculptured urn, The ponderous mass of Johnson's form to greet, Or breathe the prayer at Howard's sainted feet.'

_Ib_ i. 242.

[1230] According to Mme. D'Arblay he said:--'Sir, I shall be very glad to have a new sense _put into_ me.' He had been wont to speak slightingly of music and musicians. 'The first symptom that he showed of a tendency to conversion was upon hearing the following read aloud from the preface to Dr. Burney's _History of Music_ while it was yet in manuscript:--"The love of lengthened tones and modulated sounds seems a passion implanted in human nature throughout the globe; as we hear of no people, however wild and savage in other particulars, who have not music of some kind or other, with which they seem greatly delighted." "Sir," cried Dr. Johnson after a little pause, "this assertion I believe may be right." And then, see-sawing a minute or two on his chair, he forcibly added:--"All animated nature loves music--except myself!"' _Dr. Burney's Memoirs_, ii. 77. Hawkins (_Life_, p. 319) says that Johnson said of music, '"it excites in my mind no ideas, and hinders me from contemplating my own." I have sometimes thought that music was positive pain to him. Upon his hearing a celebrated performer go through a hard composition, and hearing it remarked that it was very difficult, he said, "I would it had been impossible."' Yet he had once bought a flageolet, though he had never made out a tune. 'Had I learnt to fiddle,' he said, 'I should have done nothing else' (_post_, April 7, 1778, and Boswell's _Hebrides_, Oct. 15, 1773). Not six months before his death he asked Dr. Burney to teach him the scale of music (_ante_, p. 263, note 4). That 'he appeared fond of the bagpipe, and used often to stand for some time with his ear close to the great drone' (Boswell's _Hebrides_, Oct. 15), does not tell for much either way. In his _Hebrides_ (_Works_, ix. 55), he shews his pleasure in singing. 'After supper,' he writes, 'the ladies sung Erse songs, to which I listened, as an English audience to an Italian opera, delighted with the sound of words which I did not understand.' Boswell records (_Hebrides_, Sept. 28) that another day a lady 'pleased him much, by singing Erse songs, and playing on the guitar.' Johnson himself shews that if his ear was dull to music, it was by no means dead to sound. He thus describes a journey by night in the Highlands (_Works_, ix. 155):--'The wind was loud, the rain was heavy, and the whistling of the blast, the fall of the shower, the rush of the cataracts, and the roar of the torrent, made a nobler chorus of the rough music of nature than it had ever been my chance to hear before.' In 1783, when he was in his seventy-fourth year, he said, on hearing the music of a funeral procession:--'This is the first time that I have ever been affected by musical sounds.' _Post_, 1780, in Mr. Langton's _Collection_.

[1231] Miss Burney, in 1778, records that he said:--'David, Madam, looks much older than he is; for his face has had double the business of any other man's; it is never at rest; when he speaks one minute, he has quite a different countenance to what he assumes the next; I don't believe he ever kept the same look for half-an-hour together in the whole course of his life; and such an eternal, restless, fatiguing play of the muscles must certainly wear out a man's face before its real time.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, i. 64. Malone fathers this witticism on Foote. Prior's _Malone_, p. 369.

[1232] On Nov. 2 of this year, a proposal was made to Garrick by the proprietors of Covent-Garden Theatre, 'that now in the time of dearth and sickness' they should open their theatres only five nights in each week. _Garrick Corres_, ii. 108.

[1233] 'Mrs. Boswell no doubt had disliked his wish to pass over his daughters in entailing the Auchinleck estate, in favour of heirs-male however remote. _Post_, p. 414--Johnson, on Feb. 9, 1776, opposing this intention, wrote:--'I hope I shall get some ground now with Mrs. Boswell.'

[1234] Joseph Ritter, a Bohemian, who was in my service many years, and attended Dr. Johnson and me in our Tour to the Hebrides. After having left me for some time, he had now returned to me. BOSWELL. See _ante_, ii. 103.

[1235] See Boswell's _Hebrides_ near the end.

[1236] See _ante_, p. 383.

[1237] Mr. Croker says that he was informed by Boswell's grand-daughter, who died in 1836, that it had come to be pronounced Auchinleck. The Rev. James Chrystal, the minister of Auchinleck, in answer to my inquiry, politely informs me that 'the name "Affleck" is still quite common as applied to the parish, and even Auchinleck House is as often called Place Affleck as otherwise.'

[1238] See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Nov. 4.

[1239] Acts of Parliament of Scotland, 1685, cap. 22. BOSWELL. Cockburn (_Life of Jeffrey_, i. 372) mentions 'the statute (11 and 12 Victoria, chap. 36) which dissolves the iron fetters by which, for about 160 years, nearly three-fourths of the whole land in Scotland was made permanently unsaleable, and unattachable for debt, and every acre in the kingdom might be bound up, throughout all ages, in favour of any heirs, or any conditions, that the caprice of each unfettered owner might be pleased to proscribe.'

[1240] As first, the opinion of some distinguished naturalists, that our species is transmitted through males only, the female being all along no more than a _nidus_, or nurse, as Mother Earth is to plants of every sort; which notion seems to be confirmed by that text of scripture, 'He was yet _in the loins of his_ FATHER when Melchisedeck met him' (Heb. vii. 10); and consequently, that a man's grandson by a daughter, instead of being his _surest_ descendant as is vulgarly said, has in reality no connection whatever with his blood. And secondly, independent of this theory, (which, if true, should completely exclude heirs general,) that if the preference of a male to a female, without regard to primogeniture, (as a son, though much younger, nay, even a grandson by a son, to a daughter,) be once admitted, as it universally is, it must be equally reasonable and proper in the most remote degree of descent from an original proprietor of an estate, as in the nearest; because,--however distant from the representative at the time,--that remote heir male, upon the failure of those nearer to the _original proprietor_ than he is, becomes in fact the nearest male to _him_, and is, therefore, preferable as _his_ representative, to a female descendant.--A little extension of mind will enable us easily to perceive that a son's son, in continuation to whatever length of time, is preferable to a son's daughter, in the succession to an ancient inheritance; in which regard should be had to the representation of the original proprietor, and not to that of one of his descendants.

I am aware of Blackstone's admirable demonstration of the reasonableness of the legal succession, upon the principle of there being the greatest probability that the nearest heir of the person who last dies proprietor of an estate, is of the blood of the first purchaser. But supposing a pedigree to be carefully authenticated through all its branches, instead of mere _probability_ there will be a _certainty_ that _the nearest heir male, at whatever period_, has the same right of blood with the first heir male, namely, _the original purchaser's eldest son_. Boswell.

[1241] Boswell wrote to Temple on Sept. 2, 1775:--'What a discouraging reflection is it that my father has in his possession a renunciation of my birthright, which I _madly_ granted to him, and which he has not the generosity to restore now that I am doing beyond his utmost hopes, and that he may incommode and disgrace me by some strange settlements, while all this time not a shilling is secured to my wife and children in case of my death!' _Letters of Boswell_, p. 216.

[1242] The technical term in Roman law for a building in good repair.

[1243] Which term I applied to all the heirs male. Boswell.

[1244] A misprint for 1776.

[1245] I had reminded him of his observation mentioned, ii. 261. BOSWELL.

[1246] The entail framed by my father with various judicious clauses, was settled by him and me, settling the estate upon the heirs male of his grandfather, which I found had been already done by my grandfather, imperfectly, but so as to be defeated only by selling the lands. I was freed by Dr. Johnson from scruples of conscientious obligation, and could, therefore, gratify my father. But my opinion and partiality of male succession, in its full extent, remained unshaken. Yet let me not be thought harsh or unkind to daughters; for my notion is, that they should be treated with great affection and tenderness, and always participate of the prosperity of the family. BOSWELL.

[1247] Temple, in _Popular Discontents_ (_Works_, iii. 62-64), examines the general dissatisfaction with the judicature of the House of Lords. Till the end of Elizabeth's reign, he states, the peers, who were few in number, were generally possessed of great estates which rendered them less subject to corruption. As one remedy for the evil existing in his time, he suggests that the Crown shall create no Baron, who shall not at the same time entail AL4000 a year upon that honour, whilst it continues in his family; a Viscount, AL5000; an Earl, AL6000; a Marquis, AL7000; and a Duke, AL8000.

[1248] 'A cruel tyranny bathed in the blood of their Emperors upon every succession; a heap of vassals and slaves; no nobles, no gentlemen, no freeman, no inheritance of land, no strip of ancient families, [nullA| stirpes antiquA|].' Spedding _Bacon_, vii. 22.

[1249] 'Let me warn you very earnestly against scruples,' he wrote on March 5, of this year:--'I am no friend to scruples,' he had said at St. Andrew's. Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 19. 'On his many, men miserable, but few men good.' Croker's _Boswell_, p. 844.

[1250] A letter to him on the interesting subject of the family settlement, which I had read. BOSWELL.

[1251] Paoli had given Boswell much the same advice. 'All this,' said Paoli, 'is melancholy. I have also studied metaphysics. I know the arguments for fate and free-will, for the materiality and immateriality of the soul, and even the subtle arguments for and against the existence of matter. _Ma lasciamo queste dispute ai oziosi_. But let us leave these disputes to the idle. _Io tengo sempre fermo un gran pensiero_. I hold always firm one great object. I never feel a moment of despondency.' Boswell's _Corsica_, ed. 1879, p. 193. See _post_, March 14, 1781.

[1252] Johnson, in his letters to the Thrales during the year 1775, mentions this riding-school eight or nine times. The person recommended was named Carter. Gibbon (_Misc. Works_, i. 72) says 'the profit of the _History_ has been applied to the establishment of a riding-school, that the polite exercises might be taught, I know not with what success, in the University.'

[1253] I suppose the complaint was, that the trustees of the Oxford Press did not allow the London booksellers a sufficient profit upon vending their publications. BOSWELL.

[1254] Cadell published _The False Alarm and The Journey to the Hebrides_. Gibbon described him as 'That honest and liberal bookseller.' Stewart's _Life of Robertson,_ p. 366.

[1255] I am happy in giving this full and clear statement to the publick, to vindicate, by the authority of the greatest authour of his age, that respectable body of men, the Booksellers of London, from vulgar reflections, as if their profits were exorbitant, when, in truth, Dr. Johnson has here allowed them more than they usually demand.

[1256] 'Behind the house was a garden which he took delight in watering; a room on the ground-floor was assigned to Mrs. Williams, and the whole of the two pair of stairs floor was made a repository for his books; one of the rooms thereon being his study. Here, in the intervals of his residence at Streatham, he received the visits of his friends, and to the most intimate of them sometimes gave not inelegant dinners.' Hawkins's _Johnson_, p. 531. He wrote to Mrs. Thrale on Aug. 14, 1780:--'This is all that I have to tell you, except that I have three bunches of grapes on a vine in my garden: at least this is all that I will now tell of my garden.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 178. This house was burnt down in 1819. _Notes and Queries_, 1st S., v. 233.

[1257] He said, when in Scotland, that he was _Johnson of that Ilk_. ROSWELL. See _post_, April 28, 1778, note.

[1258] See _ante_, ii. 229.

[1259] See vol. i. p. 375. BOSWELL. Boswell refers to the work of Dr. Cohausen of Coblentz, _Hermippus Redivivus_. Dr. Campbell translated it (_ante_, i. 417), under the title of _Hermippus Redivivus, or the Sage's Triumph over Old Age and the Grave_. Cohausen maintained that life might be prolonged to 115 years by breathing the breath of healthy young women. He founded his theory 'on a Roman inscription--_AEsculapio et Sanitati L. Colodius Hermippus qui vixit annos CXV. dies V. puellarum anhelitu_.' He maintained that one of the most eligible conditions of life was that of a Confessor of youthful nuns. _Lowndes's Bibl. Man_. p. 488, and _Gent. Mag_. xiii. 279. I. D'Israeli (_Curiosities of Literature_, ed. 1834, ii. 102) describes Campbell's book as a 'curious banter on the hermetic philosophy and the universal medicine; the grave irony is so closely kept up, that it deceived for a length of time the most learned. Campbell assured a friend it was a mere _jeu-d'-esprit_.' Lord E. Fitzmaurice (_Life of Shelburne_, iii. 447) says that Ingenhousz, a Dutch physician who lived with Shelburne, combated in one of his works the notion held by certain schoolmasters, that 'it was wholesome to inhale the air which has passed through the lungs of their pupils, closing the windows in order purposely to facilitate that operation.'

[1260] See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 24.

[1261] The privilege of perpetuating in a family an estate and arms _indefeasibly_ from generation to generation, is enjoyed by none of his Majesty's subjects except in Scotland, where the legal fiction of _fine_ and _recovery_ is unknown. It is a privilege so proud, that I should think it would be proper to have the exercise of it dependent on the royal prerogative. It seems absurd to permit the power of perpetuating their representation, to men, who having had no eminent merit, have truly no name. The King, as the impartial father of his people, would never refuse to grant the privilege to those who deserved it. BOSWELL.

[1262] Boswell wrote to Temple about six weeks later:--'Murphy says he has read thirty pages of Smith's _Wealth_, but says he shall read no more; Smith, too, is now of our Club. It has lost its select merit.' _Letters of Boswell_, p. 233. Johnson can scarcely have read Smith; if he did, it made no impression on him. His ignorance on many points as to what constitutes the wealth of a nation remained as deep as ever.

[1263] Mr. Wedderburne. CROKER.

[1264] A similar bill had been thrown out sixteen years earlier by 194 to 84. 'A Bill for a Militia in Scotland was not successful; nor could the disaffected there obtain this mode of having their arms restored. Pitt had acquiesced; but the young Whigs attacked it with all their force.' Walpole's _Reign of George II_, iii. 280. Lord Mountstuart's bill was thrown out by 112 to 95, the Ministry being in the minority. The arguments for and against it are stated in the _Ann. Reg_. xix 140. See _post_, iii. i. Henry Mackenzie (_Life of John Home_, i. 26) says:--'The Poker Club was instituted at a time when Scotland was refused a militia, and thought herself affronted by the refusal. The name was chosen from a quaint sort of allusion to the principles it was meant to excite, as a club to stir up the fire and spirit of the country.' See _ante_, p. 376.

[1265] 'Scotland paid only one fortieth to the land-tax, the very specific tax out of which all the expenses of a militia were to be drawn.' _Ann. Reg_. xix. 141.

[1266] In a new edition of this book, which was published in the following year, the editor states, that either 'through hurry or inattention some obscene jests had unluckily found a place in the first edition.' See _post_, April 28, 1778.

[1267] See _ante_, ii. 338, note 2.

[1268] The number of the asterisks, taken with the term _worthy friend_, renders it almost certain that Langton was meant. The story might, however, have been told of Reynolds, for he wrote of Johnson:--'Truth, whether in great or little matters, he held sacred. From the violation of truth, he said, in great things your character or your interest was affected; in lesser things, your pleasure is equally destroyed. I remember, on his relating some incident, I added something to his relation which I supposed might likewise have happened: "It would have been a better story," says he, "if it had been so; but it was not."' Taylor's _Reynolds_, ii. 457. Mrs. Piozzi records (_Anec_. p. 116):--'"A story," says Johnson, "is a specimen of human manners, and derives its sole value from its truth, When Foote has told me something, I dismiss it from my mind like a passing shadow; when Reynolds tells me something, I consider myself as possessed of an idea the more."'

[1269] Boswell felt this when, more than eight years earlier, he wrote:--'As I have related Paoli's remarkable sayings, I declare upon honour that I have neither added nor diminished; nay, so scrupulous have I been, that I would not make the smallest variation, even when my friends thought it would be an improvement. I know with how much pleasure we read what is perfectly authentick.' Boswell's _Corsia_, ed. 1879, p. 126. See _post_, iii. 209.

[1270] In his _Life of Browne_ (_Works_, vi. 478) he sayd of 'innocent frauds':--'But no fraud is innocent; for the confidence which makes the happiness of society is in some degree diminished by every man whose practice is at variance with his words.' 'Mr. Tyers,' writes Murphy (_Life_, p. 146), 'observed that Dr. Johnson always talked as if he was talking upon oath.' Compared with Johnson's strictness, Rouseau's laxity is striking. After describing 'ces gens qu'on appelle vrais dans le monde,' he continues;--'L'homme que j'appele _vrai_ fait tout le contraire. En choses parfaitnement indifferentes la vA(C)ritA(C) qu'alors l'autre respecte si fort le touche fort peu, et il ne se fera guA(C)re de scrupule d'amuser une compagnie par des faits controuvA(C), dont il ne rA(C)sulte aucun jugement injuste ni pour ni contre qui que ce soit vivant ou mort.' _Les RA(C)veries: IVine Promenade_.

[1271] No doubt Mrs. Fermor (_ante_, p. 392.)

[1272] No. 110.

[1273] No. 52.

[1274] But see _ante_, ii. 365, and Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 19.

[1275] See _ante_, ii. 8, and _post_, April 7, 1778.

[1276] Three weeks later, at his usual fast before Easter, Johnson recorded:--'I felt myself very much disordered by emptiness, and called for tea with peevish and impatient eagerness.' _Pr. and Med_. p. 147.

[1277] Of the use of spirituous liquors, he wrote (_Works_, vi. 26):--'The mischiefs arising on every side from this compendious mode of drunkenness are enormous and insupportable, equally to be found among the great and the mean; filling palaces with disquiet and distraction, harder to be borne as it cannot be mentioned, and overwhelming multitudes with incurable diseases and unpitied poverty.' Yet he found an excuse for drunkenness which few men but he could have found. Stockdale (_Memoirs_, ii. 189) says that he heard Mrs. Williams 'wonder what pleasure men can take in making beasts of themselves. "I wonder, Madam," replied Johnson, "that you have not penetration enough to see the strong inducement to this excess; for he who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man."'

[1278] Very likely Boswell. See _post_, under May 8, 1781, for a like instance. In 1775, under a yew tree, he promised Temple to be sober. On Aug. 12, 1775, he wrote:--'My promise under the solemn yew I have observed wonderfully, having never infringed it till, the other day, a very jovial company of us dined at a tavern, and I unwarily exceeded my bottle of old Hock; and having once broke over the pale, I run wild, but I did not get drunk. I was, however, intoxicated, and very ill next day.' _Letters of Boswell_, p. 209. During his present visit to London he wrote:--'My promise under the solemn yew was not religiously kept, because a little wine hurried me on too much. The General [Paoli] has taken my word of honour that I shall not taste fermented liquor for a year, that I may recover sobriety. I have kept this promise now about three weeks. I was really growing a drunkard.' _Ib_ p. 233. In 1778 he was for a short time a water drinker. _Post_, April 28, 1778. His intemperance grew upon him, and at last carried him off. On Dec. 4, 1790, he wrote to Malone:--'Courtenay took my word and honour that till March 1 my allowance of wine per diem should not exceed four good glasses at dinner, and a pint after it, and this I have kept, though I have dined with Jack Wilkes, &c. On March 8, 1791, he wrote:--'Your friendly admonition as to excess in wine _has_ been often too applicable. As I am now free from my restriction to Courtenay, I shall be much upon my guard; for, to tell the truth, I did go too deep the day before yesterday.' Croker's _Boswell_, pp. 828, 829.

[1279] 'Mathematics are perhaps too much studied at our universities. This seems a science to which the meanest intellects are equal. I forget who it is that says, "All men might understand mathematics if they would."' Goldsmith's _Present Stale of Polite Learning_, ch. 13.