Chapter XXV: Part 25

[1280] 'No, Sir,' he once said, 'people are not born with a particular genius for particular employments or studies, for it would be like saying that a man could see a great way east, but could not west. It is good sense applied with diligence to what was at first a mere accident, and which by great application grew to be called by the generality of mankind a particular genius.' Miss Reynolds's _Recollections_. Croker's _Boswell_, p. 833:--'Perhaps this is Miss Reynolds's recollection of the following, in Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 15, 1773':--JOHNSON. 'I could as easily apply to law as to tragick poetry.' BOSWELL. 'Yet, Sir, you did apply to tragick poetry, not to law.' JOHNSON. 'Because, Sir, I had not money to study law. Sir, the man who has vigour may walk to the east just as well as to the west, if he happens to turn his head that way.' 'The true genius,' he wrote (_Works_, vii. 1), 'is a mind of large general powers, accidentally determined to some particular direction.' Reynolds held the same doctrine, having got it no doubt from Johnson. He held 'that the superiority attainable in any pursuit whatever does not originate in an innate propensity of the mind to that pursuit in particular, but depends on the general strength of the intellect, and on the intense and constant application of that strength to a specific purpose. He regarded ambition as the cause of eminence, but accident as pointing out the _means_.' Northcote's _Reynolds_, i. II. 'Porson insisted that all men are born with abilities nearly equal. "Any one," he would say, "might become quite as good a critic as I am, if he would only take the trouble to make himself so. I have made myself what I am by intense labour."' Rogers's _Table Talk_, p. 305. Hume maintained the opposite. 'This forenoon,' wrote Boswell on June 19, 1775, 'Mr. Hume came in. He did not say much. I only remember his remark, that characters depend more on original formation than on the way we are educated; "for," said he, "princes are educated uniformly, and yet how different are they! how different was James the Second from Charles the Second!"' _Letters of Boswell_, p. 205. Boswell recorded, two years earlier (_Hebrides_, Sept. 16):--'Dr. Johnson denied that any child was better than another, but by difference of instruction; though, in consequence of greater attention being paid to instruction by one child than another, and of a variety of imperceptible causes, such as instruction being counteracted by servants, a notion was conceived that, of two children equally well educated, one was naturally much worse than another.'

[1281] See _ante_, i. 348.

[1282] The grossness of naval men is shewn in Captain Mirvan, in Miss Burney's _Evelina_. In her _Diary_, i. 358, she records:--'The more I see of sea-captains the less reason I have to be ashamed of Captain Mirvan, for they have all so irresistible a propensity to wanton mischief--to roasting beaus and detesting old women, that I quite rejoice I shewed the book to no one ere printed, lest I should have been prevailed upon to soften his character.'

[1283] Baretti, in a MS. note in _Piozzi Letters_, i. 349, describes Gwyn as 'the Welsh architect that built the bridge at Oxford.' He built Magdalen Bridge.

[1284] 'Whence,' asks Goldsmith, 'has proceeded the vain magnificence of expensive architecture in our colleges? Is it that men study to more advantage in a palace than in a cell? One single performance of taste or genius confers more real honour on its parent university than all the labours of the chisel.' _Present State of Polite Learning_, ch. 13. Newton used to say of his friend, the Earl of Pembroke, 'that he was a lover of stone dolls.' Brewster's _Newton_, ed. 1860, ii. 334.

[1285] Afterwards Lord Stowell. See the beginning of Boswell's _Hebrides_.

[1286] See _ante_, i. 446.

[1287] See _ante_, ii. 121, and _post_, Oct. 27, 1779.

[1288] See _ante_, p. 424.

[1289] See _post_, under April 4, 1781.

[1290] See _ante_, p. 315.

[1291] See _ante_, i. 398.

[1292] 'Hume told Cadell, the bookseller, that he had a great desire to be introduced to as many of the persons who had written against him as could be collected. Accordingly, Dr. Douglas, Dr. Adams, &c., were invited by Cadell to dine at his house, in order to meet Hume. They came; and Dr. Price, who was of the party, assured me that they were all delighted with David.' Rogers's _Table Talk_, p. 106.

[1293] Boswell, in his _Corsica_, ed. 1879, p. 204, uses a strange argument against infidelity. 'Belief is favourable to the human mind were it for nothing else but to furnish it entertainment. An infidel, I should think, must frequently suffer from ennui.' In his _Hebrides_, Aug. 15, note, he attacks Adam Smith for being 'so forgetful of _human comfort_ as to give any countenance to that dreary infidelity which would "make us poor indeed."'

[1294] 'JEMMY TWITCHER. Are we more dishonest than the rest of mankind? What we win, gentlemen, is our own, by the law of arms and the right of conquest. CROOK-FINGER'D JACK. Where shall we find such another set of practical philosophers, who to a man are above the fear of death?' _The Beggar's Opera_, act ii. sc. i.

[1295] Boswell, I think, here aims a blow at Gibbon. He says (_post_, under March 19, 1781), that 'Johnson had talked with some disgust of Mr. Gibbon's ugliness.' He wrote to Temple on May 8, 1779:--'Gibbon is an ugly, affected, disgusting fellow, and poisons our literary club to me.' He had before classed him among 'infidel wasps and venomous insects.' _Letters of Boswell_, pp. 233, 242. The younger Coleman describes Gibbon as dressed 'in a suit of flowered velvet, with a bag and sword.' _Random Records_, i. 121.

[1296] 'Formam quidem ipsam, Marce fili, et tamquam faciem honesti vides, "quae si oculis cerneretur, mirabiles amores" ut ait Plato, "excitaret sapientiae."' Cicero, De _Off_. i. 5.

[1297] Of Beattie's attack on Hume, he said:--'Treating your adversary with respect, is striking soft in a battle.' Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 15.

[1298] When Gibbon entered Magdalen College in 1752, the ordinary commoners were already excluded. 'As a gentleman commoner,' he writes, 'I was admitted to the society of the fellows, and fondly expected that some questions of literature would be the amusing and instructive topics of their discourse. Their conversation stagnated in a round of college business, Tory politics, personal anecdotes, and private scandal; their dull and deep potations excused the brisk intemperance of youth; and their constitutional toasts were not expressive of the most lively loyalty for the house of Hanover.' Gibbon's _Misc. Works_, i. 53. In Jesse's edition of White's _Selborne_, p. ii, it is stated that 'White, as long as his health allowed him, always attended the annual election of Fellows at Oriel College, where the gentlemen-commoners were allowed the use of the common-room after dinner. This liberty they seldom availed themselves of, except on the occasion of Mr. White's visits; for such was his happy manner of telling a story that the room was always filled when he was there.' He died in 1793.

[1299] 'So different are the colours of life as we look forward to the future, or backward to the past, and so different the opinions and sentiments which this contrariety of appearance naturally produces, that the conversation of the old and young ends generally with contempt or pity on either side.... One generation is always the scorn and wonder of the other; and the notions of the old and young are like liquors of different gravity and texture which never can unite.' _The Rambler_, No. 69.

[1300] 'It was said of a dispute between two mathematicians, "_malim cum Scaligero errare quam cum Clavio recte sapere_" that "it was more eligible to go wrong with one than right with the other." A tendency of the same kind every mind must feel at the perusal of Dryden's prefaces and Rymer's discourses.' Johnson's _Works_, vii. 303.

[1301] 'There is evidence of Phil. Jones's love of beer; for we find scribbled at the end of the college buttery-books, "O yes, O yes, come forth, Phil. Jones, and answer to your charge for exceeding the batells." His excess, perhaps, was in liquor.' _Dr. Johnson: His Friends, &c_., p. 23.

[1302] See _post_, iii. 1.

[1303] Dr. Fisher, who was present, told Mr. Croker that 'he recollected one passage of the conversation. Boswell quoted _Quern Deus vult perdere, prius dementat_, and asked where it was. A pause. At last Dr. Chandler said, in Horace. Another pause. Then Fisher remarked that he knew of no metre in Horace to which the words could be reduced: and Johnson said dictatorially, "The young man is right."' See _post_, March 30, 1783. For another of Dr. Fisher's anecdotes, see _ante_, p. 269. Mark Pattison recorded in his _Diary_ in 1843 (_Memoirs_, p. 203), on the authority of Mr. (now Cardinal) Newman:--'About 1770, the worst time in the University; a head of Oriel then, who was continually obliged to be assisted to bed by his butler. Gaudies, a scene of wild license. At Christ Church they dined at three, and sat regularly till chapel at nine.' A gaudy is such a festival as the one in the text.

[1304] The author of the _Commentary on the Psalms_. See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 15, note.

[1305] See _ante_, pp. 279, 283.

[1306] 'I have seen,' said Mr. Donne to Sir R. Drewry, 'a dreadful vision since I saw you. I have seen my dear wife pass twice by me, through this room, with her hair hanging about her shoulders, and a dead child in her arms.' He learnt that on the same day, and about the very hour, after a long and dangerous labour, she had been delivered of a dead child. Walton's _Life of Dr. Donne_, ed. 1838, p. 25.

[1307] 'Biographers so little regard the manners or behaviour of their heroes, that more knowledge may be gained of a man's real character by a short conversation with one of his servants than from a formal and studied narrative, begun with his pedigree, and ended with his funeral.' _The Rambler_, No. 60. See _post_, iii. 71.

[1308] See _post_, iii. 112.

[1309] It has been mentioned to me by an accurate English friend, that Dr. Johnson could never have used the phrase _almost nothing_, as not being English; and therefore I have put another in its place. At the same time, I am not quite convinced it is not good English. For the best writers use the phrase '_Little or nothing_;' i.e. almost so little as to be nothing. BOSWELL. Boswell might have left _almost nothing_ in his text. Johnson used it in his writings, certainly twice. 'It will add _almost nothing_ to the expense.' Works, v. 307. 'I have read little, _almost nothing_.' _Pr. and Med_. p. 176. Moreover, in a letter to Mrs. Aston, written on Nov. 5, 1779 (Croker's _Boswell_, p. 640), he says:--'Nothing almost is purchased.' In _King Lear_, act ii. sc. 2, we have:--

'Nothing almost sees miracles But misery.'

[1310] 'Pope's fortune did not suffer his charity to be splendid and conspicuous; but he assisted Dodsley with a hundred pounds, that he might open a shop.' Johnson's _Works_, viii. 318.

[1311] _A Muse in Livery: or the Footman's Miscellany_. 1732. A rhyme in the motto on the title-page shows what a Cockney muse Dodsley's was. He writes:--

'But when I mount behind the coach, And bear aloft a flaming torch.'

The Preface is written with much good feeling.

[1312] James Dodsley, many years a bookseller in Pall Mall. He died Feb. 19, 1797. P. CUNNINGHAM. He was living, therefore, when this anecdote was published.

[1313] Horace Walpole (_Letters_, iii. 135) says:--'You know how decent, humble, inoffensive a creature Dodsley is; how little apt to forget or disguise his having been a footman.' Johnson seems to refer to Dodsley in the following passage, written in 1756 (_Works_, v. 358):--'The last century imagined that a man composing in his chariot was a new object of curiosity; but how much would the wonder have been increased by a footman studying behind it.'

[1314] See _ante_, i. 417.

[1315] Yet surely it is a very useful work, and of wonderful research and labour for one man to have executed. BOSWELL. See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Oct. 17, 1773.

[1316] Two days earlier, Hume congratulated Gibbon on the first volume of his _Decline and Fall_:--'I own that if I had not previously had the happiness of your personal acquaintance, such a performance from an Englishman in our age would have given me some surprise. You may smile at this sentiment, but as it seems to me that your countrymen, for almost a whole generation, have given themselves up to barbarous and absurd faction, and have totally neglected all polite letters, I no longer expected any valuable production ever to come from them.' J. H. Burton's _Hume_, ii. 484.

[1317] Five weeks later Boswell used a different metaphor. 'I think it is right that as fast as infidel wasps or venomous insects, whether creeping or flying, are hatched, they should be crushed.' _Letters of Boswell_, p. 232. If the infidels were wasps to the orthodox, the orthodox were hornets to the infidels. Gibbon wrote (_Misc. Works_, i. 273):--'The freedom of my writings has indeed provoked an implacable tribe; but as I was safe from the stings, I was soon accustomed to the buzzing of the hornets.'

[1318] Macaulay thus examines this report (_Essays_, i. 360):--'To what then, it has been asked, could Johnson allude? Possibly to some anecdote or some conversation of which all trace is lost. One conjecture may be offered, though with diffidence. Gibbon tells us in his memoirs [_Misc. Works_, i. 56] that at Oxford he took a fancy for studying Arabic, and was prevented from doing so by the remonstrances of his tutor. Soon after this, the young man fell in with Bossuet's controversial writings, and was speedily converted by them to the Roman Catholic faith. The apostasy of a gentleman-commoner would of course be for a time the chief subject of conversation in the common room of Magdalene. His whim about Arabic learning would naturally be mentioned, and would give occasion to some jokes about the probability of his turning Mussulman. If such jokes were made, Johnson, who frequently visited Oxford, was very likely to hear of them.' Though Gibbon's _Autobiography_ ends with the year 1788, yet he wrote portions of it, I believe, after the publication of the _Life of Johnson_. (See _ante_, ii. 8, note 1.) I have little doubt that in the following lines he refers to the attack thus made on him by Boswell and Johnson. 'Many years afterwards, when the name of Gibbon was become as notorious as that of Middleton, it was industriously whispered at Oxford that the historian had formerly "turned Papist;" my character stood exposed to the reproach of inconstancy.' Gibbon's _Misc. Works_, i. 65.

[1319] Steele, in his _Apology for Himself and his Writings_ (ed. 1714, p. 80), says of himself:--'He first became an author when an ensign of the Guards, a way of life exposed to much irregularity, and being thoroughly convinced of many things of which he often repented, and which he more often repeated, he writ, for his own private use, a little book called the _Christian Hero_, with a design principally to fix upon his own mind a strong impression of virtue and religion, in opposition to a stronger propensity towards unwarrantable pleasures. This secret admonition was too weak; he therefore printed the book with his name, in hopes that a standing testimony against himself, and the eyes of the world, that is to say of his acquaintance, upon him in a new light, might curb his desires, and make him ashamed of understanding and seeming to feel what was virtuous, and living so quite contrary a life.'

[1320] 'A man,' no doubt, is Boswell himself.

[1321] '"I was sure when I read it that the preface to Baretti's _Dialogues_ was Dr. Johnson's; and that I made him confess." "Baretti's _Dialogues_! What are they about?" "A thimble, and a spoon, and a knife, and a fork! They are the most absurd, and yet the most laughable things you ever saw. They were written for Miss Thrale, and all the dialogues are between her and him, except now and then a shovel and a poker, or a goose and a chair happen to step in."' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii. 263.

[1322] 'April 4, 1760. At present nothing is talked of, nothing admired, but what I cannot help calling a very insipid and tedious performance; it is a kind of novel called _The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy_; the great humour of which consists in the whole narration always going backwards.' Walpole's _Letters_, iii. 298. 'March 7, 1761. The second and third volumes of _Tristram Shandy_, the dregs of nonsense, have universally met the contempt they deserve.' _Ib_ 382. '"My good friend," said Dr. Farmer (_ante_, i. 368), one day in the parlour at Emanuel College, "you young men seem very fond of this _Tristram Shandy_; but mark my words, however much it may be talked about at present, yet, depend upon it, in the course of twenty years, should any one wish to refer to it, he will be obliged to go to an antiquary to inquire for it."' Croker's _Boswell_, ed. 1844, ii. 339. See _ante_, ii. 173, note 2, and 222.

[1323] Mrs. Rudd. She and the two brothers Perreau were charged with forgery. She was tried first and acquitted, the verdict of the jury being 'not guilty, according to the evidence before us.' The _Ann. Reg_. xviii. 231, adds:--'There were the loudest applauses on this acquittal almost ever known in a court of justice.' 'The issue of Mrs. Rudd's trial was thought to involve the fate of the Perreaus; and the popular fancy had taken the part of the woman as against the men.' They were convicted and hanged, protesting their innocence. _Letters of Boswell_, pp. 223-230. Boswell wrote to Temple on April 28:--'You know my curiosity and love of adventure; I have got acquainted with the celebrated Mrs. Rudd.' _Ib_ P. 233--Three days later, he wrote:-- 'Perhaps the adventure with Mrs. Rudd is very foolish, notwithstanding Dr. Johnson's approbation.' _Ib_ p. 235. See _post_, iii. 79, and April 28, 1778.

[1324] See _post_, May 15, 1784, where Johnson says that Mrs. Montagu has 'a constant _stream_ of conversation,' and a second time allows that 'Burke is an extraordinary man.' Johnson writes of 'a _stream_ of melody.' Works, viii. 92. For Burke's conversation see _post_, April 7, 1778, 1780 in Mr. Langton's _Collection_, March 21, 1783, and Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 15.

[1325] See _ante_, ii. 16.

[1326] According to Boswell's record in _Boswelliana_, p. 273, two sayings are here united. He there writes, on the authority of Mr. Langton:--'Dr. Johnson had a very high opinion of Edmund Burke. He said, "That fellow calls forth all my powers"; and once when he was out of spirits and rather dejected he said, "Were I to see Burke now 'twould kill me."'

[1327] See _ante_, ii. 100, iii. 24, and under May 8, 1781.

[1328] In a note on the _Dunciad_, ii. 50, the author of this epigram is said to be Dr. Evans.

[1329] Capability Brown, as he was called. See _post_, Oct. 30, 1779.

[1330] Such an 'impudent dog' had Boswell himself been in Corsica. 'Before I was accustomed to the Corsican hospitality,' he wrote. 'I sometimes forgot myself, and imagining I was in a publick house, called for what I wanted, with the tone which one uses in calling to the waiters at a tavern. I did so at Pino, asking for a variety of things at once, when Signora Tomasi perceiving my mistake, looked in my face and smiled, saying with much calmness and good nature, "una cosa dopo un altra, Signore. One thing after another, Sir."' Boswell's _Corsica_, ed. 1879, p. 151. A Corsican gentleman, who knows the Tomasi family, told me that this reply is preserved among them by tradition.

[1331] Sir John Hawkins has preserved very few _Memorabilia_ of Johnson. There is, however, to be found, in his bulky tome [p. 87], a very excellent one upon this subject:--'In contradiction to those, who, having a wife and children, prefer domestick enjoyments to those which a tavern affords, I have heard him assert, _that a tavern chair was the throne of human felicity_.--"As soon," said he, "as I enter the door of a tavern, I experience an oblivion of care, and a freedom from solicitude: when I am seated, I find the master courteous, and the servants obsequious to my call; anxious to know and ready to supply my wants: wine there exhilarates my spirits, and prompts me to free conversation and an interchange of discourse with those whom I most love: I dogmatise and am contradicted, and in this conflict of opinions and sentiments I find delight."' BOSWELL.

[1332] We happened to lie this night at the inn at Henley, where Shenstone wrote these lines. BOSWELL. I give them as they are found in the corrected edition of his Works, published after his death. In Dodsley's collection the stanza ran thus:--

'Whoe'er has travell'd life's dull round, Whate'er his _various tour has_ been, May sigh to think _how oft_ he found His warmest welcome at an Inn.' BOSWELL.

[1333] See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Sept. 29.

[1334] See Shenstone's _Works_, iii. 311. Rev. Richard Graves, author of _The Spiritual Quixote_. He and Shenstone were fellow-students at Pembroke College, Oxford.

[1335] 'He too often makes use of the _abstract_ for the _concrete_.' SHENSTONE. BOSWELL.

[1336] 'I asked him why he doated on a coach so, and received for answer, that in the first place the company was shut in with him _there_, and could not escape as out of a room; in the next place he heard all that was said in a carriage, where it was my turn to be deaf.' Piozzi's _Anec_. p. 276. See _post_, iii, 5, 162. Gibbon, at the end of a journey in a post-chaise, wrote (_Misc. Works_, i. 408):--'I am always so much delighted and improved with this union of easeand motion, that, were not the expense enormous, I would travel every year some hundred miles, more especially in England.'

[1337] Johnson (_Works_, viii. 406) tells the following 'ludicrous story' of _The Fleece_. 'Dodsley the bookseller was one day mentioning it to a critical visitor with more expectation of success than the other could easily admit. In the conversation the author's age was asked; and, being represented as advanced in life, "He will," said the critic, "be buried in woollen."' To encourage the trade in wool, an Act was passed requiring the dead to be buried in woollen, Burke refers to this when he says of Lord Chatham, who was swathed in flannel owing to the gout:-- 'Like a true obeyer of the laws, he will be buried in woollen.' Burke's _Corres_, ii. 201. Hawkins (_Life_, p. 231) says:--'A portrait of Samuel Dyer [see _post_, 1780, in Mr. Langton's _Collection_] was painted by Sir Joshua, and from it a mezzotinto was scraped; the print whereof, as he was little known, sold only to his friends. A singular use was made of it; Bell, the publisher of _The English Poets_, caused an engraving to be made from it, and prefixed it to the poems of Mr. John Dyer.'

[1338] Such is this little laughable incident, which has been often related. Dr. Percy, the Bishop of Dromore, who was an intimate friend of Dr. Grainger, and has a particular regard for his memory, has communicated to me the following explanation:--

'The passage in question was originally not liable to such a perversion; for the authour having occasion in that part of his work to mention the havock made by rats and mice, had introduced the subject in a kind of mock heroick, and a parody of Homer's battle of the frogs and mice, invoking the Muse of the old Grecian bard in an elegant and well-turned manner. In that state I had seen it; but afterwards, unknown to me and other friends, he had been persuaded, contrary to his own better judgement, to alter it, so as to produce the unlucky effect above-mentioned.'

The above was written by the Bishop when he had not the Poem itself to recur to; and though the account given was true of it at one period, yet as Dr. Grainger afterwards altered the passage in question, the remarks in the text do not now apply to the printed poem.

The Bishop gives this character of Dr. Grainger:--'He was not only a man of genius and learning, but had many excellent virtues; being one of the most generous, friendly, and benevolent men I ever knew.' BOSWELL.

[1339] Dr. Johnson said to me, 'Percy, Sir, was angry with me for laughing at _The Sugar-cane_: for he had a mind to make a great thing of Grainger's rats.' BOSWELL. Johnson helped Percy in writing a review of this poem in 1764 (_ante_, i. 481).

[1340] In _Poems_ by Christopher Smart, ed. 1752, p. 100. One line may serve as a sample of the whole poem, Writing of 'Bacchus, God of hops,' the poet says:--

''Tis he shall gen'rate the buxom beer.'

[1341] See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 22.

[1342] Henley in Arden, thirteen miles from Birmingham.

[1343] Mr. Hector's house was in the Square--now known as the Old Square. It afterwards formed a part of the Stork Hotel, but it was pulled down when Corporation Street was made. A marble tablet had been placed on the house at the suggestion of the late Mr. George Dawson, marking the spot where 'Edmund Hector was the host, Samuel Johnson the guest.' This tablet, together with the wainscoting, the door, and the mantelpiece of one of the rooms, was set up in Aston Hall, at the Johnson Centenary, in a room that is to be known as Dr. Johnson's Room.

[1344] My worthy friend Mr. Langton, to whom I am under innumerable obligations in the course of my Johnsonian History, has furnished me with a droll illustration about this question. An honest carpenter, after giving some anecdote in his presence of the ill-treatment which he had received from a clergyman's wife, who was a noted termagant, and whom he accused of unjust dealing in some transaction with him, added, 'I took care to let her know what I thought of her.' And being asked, 'What did you say?' answered, 'I told her she was a _scoundrel_.' BOSWELL.

[1345] 'As to the baptism of infants, it is a mere human tradition, for which neither precept nor practice is to be found in all the Scripture.' Barclay's _Apology_, Proposition xii, ed. 1703, p. 409.

[1346] _John_ iii. 30. BOSWELL.

[1347] Mr. Seward (_Anec_. ii. 223) says that 'Dr. Johnson always supposed that Mr. Richardson had Mr. Nelson in his thoughts when he delineated the character of Sir Charles Grandison.' Robert Nelson was born in 1656, and died in 1715.

[1348] 'Mr. Arkwright pronounced Johnson to be the only person who on a first view understood both the principle and powers of machinery.' Johnson's _Works_ (1787), xi. 215. Arthur Young, who visited Birmingham in 1768, writes:--'I was nowhere more disappointed than at Birmingham, where I could not gain any intelligence even of the most common nature, through the excessive jealousy of the manufacturers. It seems the French have carried off several of their fabricks, and thereby injured the town not a little. This makes them so cautious that they will show strangers scarce anything.' _Tour through the North of England_, iii. 279.

[1349] Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale (year not given):--'I have passed one day at Birmingham with my old friend Hector--there's a name--and his sister, an old love. My mistress is grown much older than my friend,

---"O quid habes illius, illius Quae spirabat amores Quae me surpuerat mihi."'

'Of her, of her what now remains, Who breathed the loves, who charmed the swains, And snatched me from my heart?'

FRANCIS, Horace, _Odes_, iv. 13. 18. _Piozzi Letters_, i. 290.

[1350] Some years later he wrote:--'Mrs. Careless took me under her care, and told me when I had tea enough.' _Ib_. ii. 205.

[1351] See _ante_, ii. 362, note 3.

[1352] Johnson, in a letter to Hector, on March 7 of this year, described Congreve as 'very dull, very valetudinary, and very recluse, willing, I am afraid, to forget the world, and content to be forgotten by it, to repose in that sullen sensuality into which men naturally sink who think disease a justification of indulgence, and converse only with those who hope to prosper by indulging them ... Infirmity will come, but let us not invite it; indulgence will allure us, but let us turn resolutely away. Time cannot always be defeated, but let us not yield till we are conquered.' _Notes and Queries_, 6th S., iii. 401.

[1353] In the same letter he said:--'I hope dear Mrs. Careless is well, and now and then does not disdain to mention my name. It is happy when a brother and sister live to pass their time at our age together. I have nobody to whom I can talk of my first years--when I do to Lichfield, I see the old places but find nobody that enjoyed them with me.'

[1354] I went through the house where my illustrious friend was born, with a reverence with which it doubtless will long be visited. An engraved view of it, with the adjacent buildings, is in _The Gent. Mag_. for Feb. 1875. BOSWELL.

[1355] The scene of Farquhar's _Beaux Stratagem_ is laid in Lichfield. The passage in which the ale is praised begins as follows:--

'_Aimwell_. I have heard your town of Lichfield much famed for ale; I think I'll taste that.

'_Boniface_, Sir, I have now in my cellar ten tun of the best ale in Staffordshire; 'tis smooth as oil, sweet as milk, clear as amber, and strong as brandy; and will be just fourteen year old the fifth day of next March, old style.' Act i. sc. i. See _post_, April 20, 1781.

[1356] Though his letters to her are very affectionate, yet what he wrote of her to Mrs. Thrale shews that her love for him was not strong. Thus he writes:--'July 20, 1767. Miss Lucy is more kind and civil than I expected.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 4. 'July 17, 1771. Lucy is a philosopher, and considers me as one of the external and accidental things that are to be taken and left without emotion. If I could learn of Lucy, would it be better? Will you teach me?' _Ib_ p. 46. 'Aug. 1, 1775. This was to have been my last letter from this place, but Lucy says I must not go this week. Fits of tenderness with Mrs. Lucy are not common, but she seems now to have a little paroxysm, and I was not willing to counteract it.' _Ib_ p. 293. 'Oct. 27, 1781. Poor Lucy's illness has left her very deaf, and I think, very inarticulate ... But she seems to like me better than she did.' _Ib_ ii. 208. 'Oct. 31, 1781. Poor Lucy's health is very much broken ... Her mental powers are not impaired, and her social virtues seem to increase. She never was so civil to me before.' _Ib_ p. 211. On his mother's death he had written to her:--'Every heart must lean to somebody, and I have nobody but you.' _Ante_ i. 515.

[1357] See _ante_, p. 311.

[1358] See _post_, iii. 131.

[1359] Boswell varies Johnson's definition, which was 'a grain which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people.' _ante_, i. 294, note 8.

[1360] '"I remember," said Dr. Johnson, "when all the _decent_ people in Lichfield got drunk every night."' Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 19. See _post_, iii. 77.

[1361] He had to allow that in literature they were behind the age. Nearly four years after the publication of _Evelina_, he wrote:--'Whatever Burney [by Burney he meant Miss Burney] may think of the celerity of fame, the name of _Evelina_ had never been heard at Lichfield till I brought it. I am afraid my dear townsmen will be mentioned in future days as the last part of this nation that was civilised. But the days of darkness are soon to be at an end; the reading society ordered it to be procured this week.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 221.

[1362] See _ante_, ii. 159.

[1363] Garrick himself, like the Lichfieldians, always said--_shupreme, shuperior_. BURNEY.

[1364] Johnson did not always speak so disrespectfully of Birmingham. In his _Taxation no Tyranny_ (_Works_, vi. 228), he wrote:--'The traders of Birmingham have rescued themselves from all imputation of narrow selfishness by a manly recommendation to Parliament of the rights and dignity of their native country.' The _boobies_ in this case were sound Tories.

[1365] This play was Gibber's _Hob; or The Country Wake_, with additions, which in its turn was Dogget's _Country Wake_ reduced. Reed's _Biog. Dram_. ii. 307.

[1366] Boswell says, _post_, under Sept. 30, 1783, that 'Johnson had thought more upon the subject of acting than might be generally supposed.'

[1367] A nice observer of the female form. CROKER. Terence, _Eun_. iii. 5.

[1368] In Farquhar's Comedy of _Sir Harry Wildair_.

[1369] Gilbert Walmesley, _ante_, i. 81

[1370] See _ante_, i. 83.

[1371] Cradock (_Memoirs_ i. 74) says that in the Cathedral porch, a gentleman, 'who might, perhaps, be too ambitious to be thought an acquaintance of the great Literary Oracle, ventured to say, "Dr. Johnson, we have had a most excellent discourse to day," to which he replied, "That may be, Sir, but it is impossible for you to know it."'

[1372] _The Tempest_, act iv., sc. 1.

[1373] See _post_, iii. 151.

[1374] Johnson, in 1763, advising Miss Porter to rent a house, said:--'You might have the Palace for twenty pounds.' Croker's _Boswell_, p. 145.

[1375] Boswell, after his book was published, quarrelled with Miss Seward. He said that he was forced to examine these communications 'with much caution. They were tinctured with a strong prejudice against Johnson.' His book, he continued, was meant to be 'a _real history_ and not a _novel_,' so that he had 'to suppress all erroneous particulars, however entertaining.' He accused her of attacking Johnson with malevolence. _Gent. Mag_. 1793, p. 1009. For Boswell's second meeting with her, see _post_, iii. 284.

[1376] A Signor Recupero had noticed on Etna, the thickness of each stratum of earth between the several strata of lava. 'He tells me,' wrote Brydone, 'he is exceedingly embarrassed by these discoveries in writing the history of the mountain. That Moses hangs like a dead weight upon him, and blunts all his zeal for inquiry; for that really he has not the conscience to make his mountain so young as that prophet makes the world. The bishop, who is strenuously orthodox--for it is an excellent see--has already warned him to be upon his guard, and not to pretend to be a better natural historian than Moses.' Brydone's _Tour_, i. 141.

[1377] He wrote:--'Mr. Boswell is with me, but I will take care that he shall hinder no business, nor shall he know more than you would have him.' Mr. Morison's _Collection of Autographs_, vol. ii.

[1378] 'March 23, 1776. Master Thrale, son of Mr. Thrale, member for the Borough, suddenly before his father's door.' _Gent. Mag_. 1776, p. 142.

[1379] See _post_, iii. 95.

[1380] 'Sir,' he said, 'I would walk to the extent of the diameter of the earth to save Beauclerk' (_post_, 1780, in Mr. Langton's _Collection_). He had written of the boy the previous summer:--'Pray give my service to my dear friend Harry, and tell him that Mr. Murphy does not love him better than I do.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 262.

[1381] See an accurate and animated statement of Mr. Gastrel's barbarity, by Mr. Malone, in a note on _Some account of the Life of William Shakspeare_, prefixed to his admirable edition of that poet's works, vol. i. p. 118. BOSWELL.

[1382] See Prior's _Life of Malone_, p. 142.

[1383] _Piozzi Letters_, i. 307.

[1384] See _post_, iii. 18, note 1.

[1385] Mr. Hoole wrote of Johnson's last days:--'Being asked unnecessary and frivolous questions, he said he often thought of _Macbeth_ [act iii. sc. 4]--"Question enrages him."' Croker's _Boswell_, p. 843. See _post_, iii. 57, 268.

[1386] Sir Fletcher Norton, afterwards Speaker of the House of Commons, and in 1782 created Baron Grantley. MALONE. For Norton's ignorance, see _ante_, ii. 91. Walpole (_Letters_, iv. 124) described him as 'a tough enemy; I don't mean in parts or argument, but one that makes an excellent bull-dog.' When in 1770 he was made Speaker, Walpole wrote:--'Nothing can exceed the badness of his character, even in this bad age.' _Ib_ v. 217. In his _Memoirs of the Reign of George III_, i. 240, Walpole says:--'It was known that in private causes he took money from both parties.' Horne (afterwards Horne Tooke) charged Norton with this practice; _Parl. Hist_. xvii. 1010; and so did Junius in his _Letter_ xxxix. Churchill, in _The Duellist_ (_Poems_, ed. 1766, ii. 87), writing of him, says:--

'How often... Hath he ta'en briefs on false pretence, and undertaken the defence of trusting fools, whom in the end He meant to ruin, not defend.'

Lord Eldon said that 'he was much known by the name of Sir Bull-face Double Fee.' He added that 'he was not a lawyer.' Twiss's _Eldon_, iii. 98. 'Acting, it was supposed from resentment, having been refused a peerage,' he made on May 7, 1777, a bold speech to the King on presenting the Civil List Bill. 'He told him that his faithful Commons, labouring under burthens almost too heavy to be borne, had granted him a very great additional revenue--great beyond example, great beyond his Majesty's highest wants.' _Parl. Hist_. xix. 213, and Walpole's _Journal of the Reign of George III_, ii. 113.

[1387] Burns's Holy Willie, like Boswell, was an Ayrshire man.

[1388] Johnson, on May 16, wrote of him to Mrs. Thrale:--'He has his head as full as yours at an election. Livings and preferments, as if he were in want with twenty children, run in his head. But a man must have his head on something, small or great.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 325.

[1389] Johnson wrote on May 25, 1780 (_Piozzi Letters_, ii. 136):'---- is come to town, brisk and vigorous, fierce and fell, to drive on his lawsuit. Nothing in all life now can be more _profligater_ than what he is; and if, in case, that so be, that they persist for to resist him, he is resolved not to spare no money, nor no time.' Taylor, no doubt, is meant, and Baretti, in a marginal note, says:--'This was the elegant phraseology of that Doctor.' See _post_, iii. 180.

[1390] See _ante_, p. 460.

[1391] He did not hold with Steele, who in _The Spectator_, No. 153, writes:--'It was prettily said, "He that would be long an old man must begin early to be one."' Mrs. Piozzi (_Anec_. p. 275) says that 'saying of the old philosopher, that he who wants least is most like the gods who want nothing, was a favourite sentence with Dr. Johnson, who required less attendance, sick or well, than ever I saw any human creature.'

[1392] Dr. Butter, of Derby, is mentioned _post_, iii. 163, and under May 8, 1781.

[1393] Andrew Stuart's _Letters to Lord Mansfield_ (_ante_, ii. 229).

[1394] Johnson was thinking of Charles's meeting with the King of Poland. 'Charles XII. A(C)tait en grosses bottes, ayant pour cravate un taffetas noir qui lui serrait le cou; son habit A(C)tait, comme A l'ordinaire, d'un gros drap bleu, avec des boutons de cuivre dorA(C).' Voltaire's _Works_, ed. 1819, xx. 123.

THE END OF THE SECOND VOLUME.