Chapter XXV: Letter IV: 'sir, (5)

[538] Campbell, who was an exciseman, had in July, 1769, caught a favourite servant of Lord Eglintoune in smuggling 80 gallons of rum in one of his master's carts. This, he maintains, led to an ill-feeling. He had a right to carry a gun by virtue of his office, and from many of the gentry he had licences to shoot over their grounds. His lordship, however, had forbidden him to enter his. On Oct. 24, 1769, he passed into his grounds, and walked along the shore within the sea-mark, looking for a plover. Lord Eglintoune came up with him on the sea-sands and demanded his gun, advancing as if to seize it. Campbell warned him that he would fire if he did not keep off, and kept retiring backwards or sideways. He stumbled and fell. Lord Eglintoune stopped a little, and then made as if he would advance. Campbell thereupon fired, and hit him in the side. He was found guilty of murder. On the day after the trial he hanged himself in prison. _Ann. Reg_. xiii. 219. See _ante_, ii. 66, and Boswell's _Hebrides_, Nov. 1.

[539] See _ante_, p. 40.

[540] _See ante_, ii. 10.

[541] Boswell here alludes to the motto of his Journal:--

'Oh! while along the stream of time thy name Expanded flies, and gathers all its fame; Say, shall my little bark attendant sail, Pursue the triumph, and partake the gale?'

Pope's _Essay on Man_, iv. 383.

[542]

'His listless length at noontide would he stretch, And pore upon the brook that babbles by.'

Gray's _Elegy_.

[543] Johnson, a fortnight or so later, mentions this waterfall in a letter to Mrs. Thrale, after speaking of a pool that Mr. Thrale was having dug. 'He will have no waterfall to roar like the Doctor's. I sat by it yesterday, and read Erasmus's _Militis Christiani Enchiridion_.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 3.

[544] See _post_, April 9 and 30, 1778. At the following Easter he recorded: 'My memory is less faithful in retaining names, and, I am afraid, in retaining occurrences.' _Pr. and Med_. p. 170.

[545] I am told that Horace, Earl of Orford, has a collection of _Bon-Mots_ by persons who never said but one. BOSWELL. Horace Walpole had succeeded to his title after the publication of the first edition of this book.

[546] See Macaulay's _Essays_, i. 370.

[547] Johnson (_Works_, vii. 158) tells how 'Rochester lived worthless and useless, and blazed out his youth and his health in lavish voluptuousness; till, at the age of one and thirty, he had exhausted the fund of life, and reduced himself to a state of weakness and decay.' He describes how Burnet 'produced a total change both of his manners and opinions,' and says of the book in which this conversion is recounted that it is one 'which the critick ought to read for its elegance, the philosopher for its arguments, and the saint for its piety.' In Johnson's answer to Boswell we have a play on the title of this work, which is, _Some passages of the Life and Death of John Earl of Rochester_.

[548] In the passages from Johnson's _Life of Prior_, quoted _ante_, ii. 78, note 3, may be found an explanation of what he here says. A poet who 'tries to be amorous by dint of study,' and who 'in his amorous pedantry exhibits the college,' may be gross and yet not excite to lewdness. Goldsmith, in 1766, in a book entitled _Beauties of English Poetry Selected_, had inserted two of Prior's tales, 'which for once interdicted from general reading a book with his name upon its title-page.' Mr. Forster hereupon remarks 'on the changes in the public taste. Nothing is more frequent than these, and few things so sudden.' Of these changes he gives some curious instances. Forster's _Goldsmith_, ii. 4.

[549] See _ante_, iii. 5.

[550] See _ante_, i. 428.

[551] Horace, _Odes_, ii. 14.

[552] I am informed by Mr. Langton, that a great many years ago he was present when this question was agitated between Dr. Johnson and Mr. Burke; and, to use Johnson's phrase, they 'talked their best;' Johnson for Homer, Burke for Virgil. It may well be supposed to have been one of the ablest and most brilliant contests that ever was exhibited. How much must we regret that it has not been preserved. BOSWELL. Johnson (_Works_, vii. 332), after saying that Dryden 'undertook perhaps the most arduous work of its kind, a translation of Virgil,' continues:--'In the comparison of Homer and Virgil, the discriminative excellence of Homer is elevation and comprehension of thought, and that of Virgil is grace and splendour of diction. The beauties of Homer are therefore difficult to be lost, and those of Virgil difficult to be retained.' Mr. E.J. Payne, in his edition of Burke's _Select Works_, i. xxxviii, says:-- 'Most writers have constantly beside them some favourite classical author from whom they endeavour to take their prevailing tone. Burke, according to Butler, always had a "ragged Delphin _Virgil_" not far from his elbow.' See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 21, note.

[553] According to Sir Joshua Reynolds, 'Mr. Burke, speaking of Bacon's _Essays_, said he thought them the best of his works. Dr. Johnson was of opinion that their excellence and their value consisted in being the observations of a strong mind operating upon life; and in consequence you find there what you seldom find in other books.' Northcote's _Reynolds_, ii. 281.

[554] Mr. Seward perhaps imperfectly remembered the following passage in the _Preface to the Dictionary_ (_Works_, v. 40):--'From the authors which rose in the time of Elizabeth, a speech might be formed adequate to all the purposes of use and elegance. If the language of theology were extracted from Hooker and the translation of the Bible; the terms of natural knowledge from Bacon; the phrases of policy, war, and navigation from Raleigh; the dialect of poetry and fiction from Spenser and Sidney; and the diction of common life from Shakespeare, few ideas would be lost to mankind for want of English words in which they might be expressed.'

[555] Of Mallet's _Life of Bacon_, Johnson says (_Works_, viii. 465) that it is 'written with elegance, perhaps with some affectation; but with so much more knowledge of history than of science, that when he afterwards undertook the _Life of Marlborough_, Warburton remarked, that he might perhaps forget that Marlborough was a general, as he had forgotten that Bacon was a philosopher.'

[556] It appears from part of the original journal in Mr. Anderdon's papers that the friend who told the story was Mr. Beauclerk and the gentleman and lady alluded to were Mr. (probably Henry) and Miss Harvey. CROKER. Not Harvey but Hervey. See _ante_, i. 106, and ii. 32, for another story told by Beauclerk against Johnson of Mr. Thomas Hervey.

[557] Johnson, in his _Dictionary_, gives as the 17th meaning of _make, to raise as profit from anything_. He quotes the speech of Pompey in _Measure for Measure_, act iv. sc. 3:--'He made five marks, ready money.' But Pompey, he might reply, was a servant, and his English therefore is not to be taken as a standard.

[558] _Idea_ he defines as _mental imagination_.

[559] See _post_, May 15, 1783, note.

[560] In the first three editions of Boswell we find _Tadnor_ for _Tadmor_. In Dodsley's _Collection_, iv. 229, the last couplet is as follows:--

'Or Tadmor's marble wastes survey, Or in yon roofless cloister stray.'

[561] This is the tune that William Crotch (Dr. Crotch) was heard playing before he was two years and a half old, on a little organ that his father, a carpenter, had made. _Ann. Reg_. xxii 79.

[562] See _ante_, under Dec. 17, 1775.

[563] In 1757 two battalions of Highlanders were raised and sent to North America. _Gent. Mag_. xxvii. 42, 333. Boswell (_Hebrides_, Sept. 3, 1773) mentions 'the regiments which the late Lord Chatham prided himself in having brought from "the mountains of the north."' Chatham said in the House of Lords on Dec. 2, 1777:--'I remember that I employed the very rebels in the service and defence of their country. They were reclaimed by this means; they fought our battles; they cheerfully bled in defence of those liberties which they attempted to overthrow but a few years before.' _Parl. Hist_. xix. 477.

[564]

'Yet hope not life from grief or danger free, Nor think the doom of man reversed for thee.'

Line 154.

[565] See _ante_, ii. 168. Boswell, when a widower, wrote to Temple of a lady whom he seemed not unwilling to marry:--'She is about seven-and-twenty, and he [Sir William Scott] tells me lively and gay-- _a Ranelagh girl_--but of excellent principles, insomuch that she reads prayers to the servants in her father's family every Sunday evening.' _Letters of Boswell_, p. 336.

[566] Pope mentions [_Dunciad_, iv. 342],

'Stretch'd on the rack of a too easy chair.'

But I recollect a couplet quite apposite to my subject in _Virtue an Ethick Epistle_, a beautiful and instructive poem, by an anonymous writer, in 1758; who, treating of pleasure in excess, says:--

'Till languor, suffering on the rack of bliss, Confess that man was never made for this.' BOSWELL.

[567] See _post_, June 12, 1784.

[568] See _ante_, p. 86.

[569] 'For I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge.' _Romans_, x. 2.

[570] Horace Walpole wrote:--'Feb. 17, 1773. Caribs, black Caribs, have no representatives in Parliament; they have no agent but God, and he is seldom called to the bar of the House to defend their cause.' Walpole's _Letters_, v. 438. 'Feb. 14, 1774. 'If all the black slaves were in rebellion, I should have no doubt in choosing my side, but I scarce wish perfect freedom to merchants who are the bloodiest of all tyrants. I should think the souls of the Africans would sit heavy on the swords of the Americans.' _Ib_. vi. 60.

[571] See _ante_, ii. 27, 312.

[572] 'We are told that the subjection of Americans may tend to the diminution of our own liberties; an event which none but very perspicacious politicians are able to foresee. If slavery be thus fatally contagious, how is it that we hear,' etc. _Works_, vi. 262. In his _Life of Milton_ (_ib_. vii. 116) he says:--'It has been observed that they who most loudly clamour for liberty do not most liberally grant it.'

[573] See page 76 of this volume. BOSWELL.

[574] The address was delivered on May 23, 1770. The editor of _Rogers's Table Talk_ quotes, on p. 129, Mr. Maltby, the friend of Rogers, who says:--'Dr. C. Burney assured me that Beckford did not utter one syllable of the speech--that it was wholly the invention of Horne Tooke. Being very intimate with Tooke, I questioned him on the subject. "What Burney states," he said, "is true. I saw Beckford just after he came from St. James's. I asked him what he had said to the King; and he replied, that he had been so confused, he scarcely knew what he had said. But, cried I, _your speech_ must be sent to the papers; I'll write it for you. I did so immediately, and it was printed forthwith."' Tooke gave the same account to Isaac Reed. Walpole's _Letters_, v. 238, note. Stephens (_Life of Horne Tooke_, i. 155-8) says, that the King's answer had been anticipated and that Horne had suggested the idea of a reply. Stephens continues:--'The speech in reply, as Mr. Horne lately acknowledged to me, was his composition.' Stephens does not seem to have heard the story that Beckford did not deliver the reply. He says that Horne inserted the account in the newspapers. 'No one,' he continues, 'was better calculated to give copies of those harangues than the person who had furnished the originals; and as to the occurrences at St. James's, he was enabled to detail the particulars from the lips of the members of the deputation.' Alderman Townshend assured Lord Chatham that Beckford did deliver the speech. _Chatham Corres_. iii. 460. Horne Tooke's word is not worth much. He did not resign his living till more than seven years after he wrote to Wilkes:--'It is true I have suffered the infectious hand of a bishop to be waved over me; whose imposition, like the sop given to Judas, is only a signal for the devil to enter.' Stephens's _Horne Tooke_, i. 76. Beckford, dying in his Mayoralty, is oddly connected with Chatterton. 'Chatterton had written a political essay for _The North Briton_, which, though accepted, was not printed on account of Lord Mayor Beckford's death. The patriot thus calculated the death of his great patron:--

£ s. d.
Lost by his death in
this Essay 1 11 6
Gained in Elegies £2.2
in Essays £3.3
----
5 5 0
-------------
Am glad he is dead by £3 13 6

D'Israeli's _Calamities of Authors_, i. 54.

[575] At the time that Johnson wrote this there were serfs in Scotland. An Act passed in 1775 (15 Geo. III. c. 22) contains the following preamble:--'Whereas by the law of Scotland, as explained by the judges of the courts of law there, many colliers and salters are in a state of slavery and bondage, bound to the collieries or saltworks where they work for life, transferable with the coalwork and salteries,' etc. The Act was ineffectual in giving relief, and in 1779 by 39 Geo. III. c. 56 all colliers were 'declared to be free from their servitude.' The last of these emancipated slaves died in the year 1844. _Tranent and its Surroundings_, by P. M'Neill, p. 26. See also _Parl. Hist_. xxix. 1109, where Dundas states that it was only 'after several years' struggle that the bill was carried through both Houses.'

[576] See _ante_, ii. 13.

[577] 'The Utopians do not make slaves of the sons of their slaves; the slaves among them are such as are condemned to that state of life for the commission of some crime.' Sir T. More's _Utopia--Ideal Commonwealths_, p. 129.

[578] The Rev. John Newton (Cowper's friend) in 1763 wrote of the slave-trade, in which he had been engaged, 'It is indeed accounted a genteel employment, and is usually very profitable, though to me it did not prove so, the Lord seeing that a large increase of wealth could not be good for me.' Newton's _Life_, p. 148. A ruffian of a London Alderman, a few weeks before _The Life of Johnson_ was published, said in parliament:--'The abolition of the trade would destroy our Newfoundland fishery, which the slaves in the West Indies supported _by consuming that part of the fish which was fit for no other consumption_, and consequently, by cutting off the great source of seamen, annihilate our marine.' _Parl. Hist_. xxix. 343.

[579] Gray's Elegy. Mrs. Piozzi maintained that 'mercy was totally abolished by French maxims; for, if all men are equal, mercy is no more.' Piozzi's _Synonymy_, i. 370. Johnson, in 1740, described slavery as 'the most calamitous estate in human life,' a state 'which has always been found so destructive to virtue, that in many languages a slave and a thief are expressed by the same word.' _Works_, v. 265-6. Nineteen years later he wrote of the discoveries of the Portuguese:--'Much knowledge has been acquired, and much cruelty been committed; the belief of religion has been very little propagated, and its laws have been outrageously and enormously violated.' _Ib_. p. 219. Horace Walpole wrote, on July 9, 1754, (_Letters_, ii. 394), 'I was reading t'other day the _Life of Colonel Codrington_. He left a large estate for the propagation of the Gospel, and ordered that three hundred negroes should constantly be employed upon it. Did one ever hear a more truly Christian charity than keeping up a perpetuity of three hundred slaves to look after the Gospel's estate?' Churchill, in _Gotham_, published in 1764 (_Poems_, ii. 101), says of Europe's treatment of the savage race:--

'Faith too she plants, for her own ends imprest, To make them bear the worst, and hope the best.'

[580]

'With stainless lustre virtue shines, A base repulse nor knows nor fears;

Nor claims her honours, nor declines, As the light air of crowds uncertain veers.' FRANCIS. Horace _Odes_, iii. 2.

[581] Sir Walter Scott, in a note to _Redgauntlet_, Letter 1, says:-- 'Sir John Nisbett of Dirleton's _Doubts and Questions upon the Law especially of Scotland_, and Sir James Stewart's _Dirleton's Doubts and Questions resolved and answered_, are works of authority in Scottish jurisprudence. As is generally the case, the _Doubts_ are held more in respect than the solution.'

[582] When Boswell first made Johnson's acquaintance it was he who suffered from the late hours. _Ante_, i. 434.

[583] See _ante_, ii. 312.

[584] Burke, in _Present Discontents_, says:--'The power of the Crown, almost dead and rotten as Prerogative, has grown up anew, with much more strength and far less odium, under the name of Influence.' _Influence_ he explains as 'the method of governing by men of great natural interest or great acquired consideration.' Payne's _Burke_, i. 10, 11. 'Influence,' said Johnson,' must ever be in proportion to property; and it is right it should.' Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 18. To political life might be applied what Johnson wrote of domestic life:--'It is a maxim that no man ever was enslaved by influence while he was fit to be free.' _Notes and Queries_, 6th S., v. 343.

[585] Boswell falls into what he calls 'the cant transmitted from age to age in praise of the ancient Romans.' _Ante_, i. 311. To do so with Johnson was at once to provoke an attack, for he looked upon the Roman commonwealth as one 'which grew great only by the misery of the rest of mankind.' _Ib_. Moreover he disliked appeals to history. 'General history,' writes Murphy (_Life_, p. 138), 'had little of his regard. Biography was his delight. Sooner than hear of the Punic War he would be rude to the person that introduced the subject.' Mrs. Piozzi says (_Anec_. p. 80) that 'no kind of conversation pleased him less, I think, than when the subject was historical fact or general polity. 'What shall we learn from _that_ stuff?' said he. 'He never,' as he expressed it, 'desired to hear of the _Punic War_ while he lived.' The _Punic War_, it is clear, was a kind of humorous catch word with him. She wrote to him in 1773:--'So here's modern politics in a letter from me; yes and a touch of the _Punic War_ too.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 187. He wrote to her in 1775, just after she had been at the first regatta held in England:--'You will now find the advantage of having made one at the regatta.... It is the good of public life that it supplies agreeable topics and general conversation. Therefore wherever you are, and whatever you see, talk not of the Punic War; nor of the depravity of human nature; nor of the slender motives of human actions; nor of the difficulty of finding employment or pleasure; but talk, and talk, and talk of the regatta.' _Ib_. p. 260. He was no doubt sick of the constant reference made by writers and public speakers to Rome. For instance, in Bolingbroke's _Dissertation upon Parties_, we find in three consecutive Letters (xi-xiii) five illustrations drawn from Rome.

[586] It is strange that Boswell does not mention that on this day they met the Duke and Duchess of Argyle in the street. That they did so we learn from _Piozzi Letters_, i. 386. Perhaps the Duchess shewed him 'the same marked coldness' as at Inverary. Boswell's _Hebrides_, Oct. 25.

[587] At Auchinleck he had 'exhorted Boswell to plant assiduously.' Boswell's _Hebrides_, Nov. 4.

[588] See _ante_, i. 72. In Scotland it was Cocker's _Arithmetic_ that he took with him. Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 31. He was not always correct in his calculations. For instance, he wrote to Mrs. Thrale from Ashbourne less than a fortnight after Boswell's departure: 'Mr. Langdon bought at Nottingham fair fifteen tun of cheese; which, at an ounce a-piece, will suffice after dinner for four-hundred-and-eighty thousand men.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 2. To arrive at this number he must have taken a hundredweight as equal to, not 112, but 100, pounds.

[589] Johnson wrote the next day:--'Boswell is gone, and is, I hope, pleased that he has been here; though to look on anything with pleasure is not very common. He has been gay and good-humoured in his usual way, but we have not agreed upon any other expedition.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 384.

[590] He lent him also the original journal of his _Hebrides_, and received in return a complimentary letter, which he in like manner published. Boswell's _Hebrides_, near the end.

[591] 'The landlord at Ellon said that he heard he was the greatest man in England, next to Lord Mansfield.' _Ante_, ii. 336.

[592] See _ante_, under March 15, 1776, where Johnson says that 'truth is essential to a story.'

[593] Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale:--'Boswell kept his journal very diligently; but then what was there to journalize? I should be glad to see what he says of *********.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 390. The number of stars renders it likely that Beauclerk is meant. See _ante_, p. 195, note 1.

[594] See _ante_, ii. 279.

[595] Mr. Beauclerk. See _ante_, p. 195.

[596] Beauclerk.

[597] Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale:--'Boswell says his wife does not love me quite well yet, though we have made a formal peace.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 390.

[598] A daughter born to him. BOSWELL. Mr. Croker says that this daughter was Miss Jane Langton, mentioned post, May 10, 1784.

[599] She had already had eleven children, of whom seven were by this time dead. _Ante_, p. 109. This time a daughter was born, and not a young brewer. _Post_, July 3, 1778.

[600] Three months earlier Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale:--'We are not far from the great year of a hundred thousand barrels, which, if three shillings be gained upon each barrel, will bring us fifteen thousand pounds a year.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 357. We may see how here, as elsewhere, he makes himself almost one with the Thrales.

[601] See _ante_, p. 97.

[602] Mrs. Aston. BOSWELL.

[603] See _State Trials_, vol. xi. p. 339, and Mr. Hargrave's argument. BOSWELL. See _ante_, p. 87.

[604] The motto to it was happily chosen:--

'Quamvis ille niger, quamvis tu candidus esses.'

I cannot avoid mentioning a circumstance no less strange than true, that a brother Advocate in considerable practice, but of whom it certainly cannot be said, _Ingenuas didicit fideliter artes_, asked Mr. Maclaurin, with a face of flippant assurance, 'Are these words your own?' BOSWELL. Sir Walter Scott shows where the humour of this motto chiefly lay. 'The counsel opposite,' he writes, 'was the celebrated Wight, an excellent lawyer, but of very homely appearance, with heavy features, a blind eye which projected from its socket, a swag belly, and a limp. To him Maclaurin applied the lines of Virgil:--

'Quamvis ille niger, quamvis tu candidus esses, O formose puer, nimium ne crede colori.'

['Though he was black, and thou art heavenly fair, Trust not too much to that enchanting face.'

DRYDEN. Virgil, _Eclogues_, ii. 16.] Mr. Maclaurin wrote an essay against the Homeric tale of 'Troy divine,' I believe, for the sole purpose of introducing a happy motto,--

'Non anni domuere decem non mille carinæ.'

[Æneid, ii. 198.] Croker's _Boswell_, p. 279.

[605] There is, no doubt, some malice in this second mention of Dundas's Scottish accent (see _ante_, ii. 160). Boswell complained to Temple in 1789 that Dundas had not behaved well to himself or his brother David. 'The fact is, he writes, 'on David's being obliged to quit Spain on account of the war, Dundas promised to my father that he would give him an office. Some time after my father's death, Dundas renewed the assurance to me in strong terms, and told me he had said to Lord Caermarthen, "It is a deathbed promise, and I must fulfil it." Yet David has now been kept waiting above eight years, when he might have established himself again in trade.... This is cruel usage.' Boswell adds:--'I strongly suspect Dundas has given Pitt a prejudice against me. The excellent Langton says it is disgraceful; it is utter folly in Pitt not to reward and attach to his Administration a man of my popular and pleasant talents, whose merit he has acknowledged in a letter under his own hand.' _Letters of Boswell_, p. 286.

[606] Knight was kidnapped when a child and sold to a Mr. Wedderburne of Ballandean, who employed him as his personal servant. In 1769 his master brought him to Britain, and from that time allowed him sixpence a week for pocket money. By the assistance of his fellow-servants he learnt to read. In 1772 he read in a newspaper the report of the decision in the Somerset Case. 'From that time,' said Mr. Ferguson, 'he had had it in his head to leave his master's service.' In 1773 he married a fellow-servant, and finding sixpence a week insufficient for married life, applied for ordinary wages. This request being refused, he signified his intention of seeking service elsewhere. On his master's petition to the Justices of Peace of Perthshire, he was brought before them on a warrant; they decided that he must continue with him as formerly. For some time he continued accordingly; but a child being born to him, he petitioned the Sheriff, who decided in his favour. He thereupon left the house of his master, who removed the cause into the Court of Session.' Ferguson maintained that there are 'many examples of greater servitude in this country [Scotland] than that claimed by the defender, i.e. [Mr. Wedderburne, the plaintiff]. There still exists a species of perpetual servitude, which is supported by late statutes and by daily practice, viz. That which takes place with regard to the coaliers and sailers, where, from the single circumstance of entering to work after puberty, they are bound to perpetual service, and sold along with the works.' Ferguson's _Additional Information_, July 4, 1775, pp. 3; 29; and Maclaurin's _Additional Information_, April 20, 1776, p. 2. See _ante_, p. 202.

[607] See _ante_, p. 106.

[608] Florence Wilson accompanied, as tutor, Cardinal Wolsey's nephew to Paris, and published at Lyons in 1543 his _De Tranquillitate Animi Dialogus_. Rose's _Biog. Dict_. xii. 508.

[609] When Johnson visited Boswell in Edinburgh, Mrs. Boswell 'insisted that, to show all respect to the Sage, she would give up her own bed-chamber to him, and take a worse.' Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 14. See _post_, April 18, 1778.

[610] See _ante_, Dec. 23, 1775.

[611] Fielding, in his _Voyage to Lisbon_ (p. 2), writes of him as 'my friend Mr. Welch, whom I never think or speak of but with love and esteem.' See _post_, under March 30, 1783.

[612] Johnson defines _police_ as _the regulation and government of a city or country, so far as regards the inhabitants_.

[613] At this time Under-secretary of State. See _ante_, i. 478, note 1.

[614] Fielding, after telling how, unlike his predecessor, he had not plundered the public or the poor, continues:--'I had thus reduced an income of about £500 a-year of the dirtiest money upon earth to little more than £300; a considerable proportion of which remained with my clerk.' He added that he 'received from the Government a yearly pension out of the public service money.' _Voyage to Lisbon_, Introduction.

[615] The friendship between Mr. Welch and him was unbroken. Mr. Welch died not many months before him, and bequeathed him five guineas for a ring, which Johnson received with tenderness, as a kind memorial. His regard was constant for his friend Mr. Welch's daughters; of whom, Jane is married to Mr. Nollekens the statuary, whose merit is too well known to require any praise from me. BOSWELL.

[616] See _ante_, ii. 50. It seems from Boswell's words, as the editor of the _Letters of Boswell_ (p. 91) points out, that in this case he was 'only a friend and amateur, and not a duly appointed advocate.' He certainly was not retained in an earlier stage of the cause, for on July 22, 1767, he wrote:--'Though I am not a counsel in that cause, yet I am much interested in it.' _Ib_. p. 93.

[617] Dr. Percy, the Bishop of Dromore, humorously observed, that Levett used to breakfast on the crust of a roll, which Johnson, after tearing out the crumb for himself, threw to his humble friend. BOSWELL. Perhaps the word _threw_ is here too strong. Dr. Johnson never treated Levett with contempt. MALONE. Hawkins (_Life_, p. 398) says that 'Dr. Johnson frequently observed that Levett was indebted to him for nothing more than house-room, his share in a penny loaf at breakfast, and now and then a dinner on a Sunday.' Johnson's roll, says Dr. Harwood, was every morning placed in a small blue and white china saucer which had belonged to his wife, and which he familiarly called 'Tetty.' See the inscription on the saucer in the Lichfield Museum.

[618] See this subject discussed in a subsequent page, under May 3, 1779. BOSWELL.

[619] On Feb. 17, Lord North 'made his Conciliatory Propositions.' _Parl. Hist_. xix. 762.

[620] See _ante_, ii 111.

[621] See _ante_, ii. 312.

[622] Alluding to a line in his _Vanity of Human Wishes_, describing Cardinal Wolsey in his state of elevation:--

'Through him the rays of regal bounty shine.' BOSWELL.

[623] See _ante_, p. 205.

[624] 'In my mind's eye, Horatio.' _Hamlet_, act i. sc. 2.

[625] Mr. Langton. See _ante_, p. 48.

[626] See _ante_, May 12, 1775.

[627] Daughter of Dr. Swinfen, Johnson's godfather, and widow of Mr. Desmoulins, a writing-master. BOSWELL.

[628] Johnson wrote to Mrs. Montagu on March 5:--'Now, dear Madam, we must talk of business. Poor Davies, the bankrupt bookseller, is soliciting his friends to collect a small sum for the repurchase of part of his household stuff. Several of them gave him five guineas. It would be an honour to him to owe part of his relief to Mrs. Montagu.' Croker's _Boswell_, p. 570. J. D'Israeli says (_Calamities of Authors_, i. 265):--'We owe to Davies beautiful editions of some of our elder poets, which are now eagerly sought after; yet, though all his publications were of the best kinds, and are now of increasing value, the taste of Tom Davies twice ended in bankruptcy.' See _post_, April 7, 1778.

[629] See _ante_, i. 391. Davies wrote to Garrick in 1763:--'I remember that during the run of _Cymbeline_ I had the misfortune to disconcert you in one scene of that play, for which I did immediately beg your pardon, and did attribute it to my accidentally seeing Mr. Churchill in the pit, with great truth; and that was the only time I can recollect of my being confused or unmindful of my business when that gentleman was before me. I had even then a more moderate opinion of my abilities than your candour would allow me, and have always acknowledged that gentleman's picture of me was fair.' He adds that he left the stage on account of Garrick's unkindness, 'who,' he says, 'at rehearsals took all imaginable pains to make me unhappy.' _Garrick Corres_. i. 165.

[630] He was afterwards Solicitor-General under Lord Rockingham and Attorney-General under the Duke of Portland. 'I love Mr. Lee exceedingly,' wrote Boswell, 'though I believe there are not any two specifick propositions of any sort in which we exactly agree. But the general mass of sense and sociality, literature and religion, in each of us, produces two given quantities, which unite and effervesce wonderfully well. I know few men I would go farther to serve than Jack Lee.' _Letter to the People of Scotland_, p. 75. Lord Eldon said that Lee, in the debates upon the India Bill, speaking of the charter of the East India Company, 'expressed his surprise that there could be such political strife about what he called "a piece of parchment, with a bit of wax dangling to it." This most improvident expression uttered by a Crown lawyer formed the subject of comment and reproach in all the subsequent debates, in all publications of the times, and in everybody's conversation.' Twiss's _Eldon_, iii. 97. In the debate on Fox's India Bill on Dec. 3, 1783, Lee 'asked what was the consideration of a charter, a skin of parchment with a waxed seal at the corner, compared to the happiness of thirty millions of subjects, and the preservation of a mighty empire.' _Parl. Hist_. xxiv. 49. See Twiss's _Eldon_, i. 106-9, and 131, for anecdotes of Lee; and _ante_, ii. 48, note 1.

[631] 'For now we see _through_ a glass darkly; but then face to face.' I _Corinthians_, xiii. 12.

[632] Goldsmith notices this in the _Haunch of Venison_:--

My friend bade me welcome, but struck me quite dumb With tidings that Johnson and Burke would not come; For I knew it (he cried), both eternally fail, The one with his speeches, and _t'other with Thrale_.'

CROKER. See _ante_, i. 493.

[633] See _post_, April 1, 1781. 'Johnson said:--"He who praises everybody praises nobody."' Johnson's _Works_ (1787), xi. 216.

[634] See ante, p. 55.

[635] Johnson wrote in July 1775:--'Everybody says the prospect of harvest is uncommonly delightful; but this has been so long the summer talk, and has been so often contradicted by autumn, that I do not suffer it to lay much hold on my mind. Our gay prospects have now for many years together ended in melancholy retrospects.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 259. On Aug. 27, 1777, he wrote:--'Amidst all these little things there is one great thing. The harvest is abundant, and the weather _à la merveille_. No season ever was finer.' _Ib_. p. 360. In this month of March, 1778, wheat was selling at 5s. 3d. the bushel in London; at 6s. 10d. in Somerset; and at 5s. 1d. in Northumberland, Suffolk, and Sussex. _Gent. Mag_. xlviii. 98. The average price for 1778 was 5s. 3d. _Ann. Reg_. xxi. 282.

[636] See _post_, iii. 243, Oct. 10, 1779, and April 1, 1781.

[637] The first edition was in 1492. Between that period and 1792, according to this account, there were 3600 editions. But this is very improbable. MALONE. Malone assumes, as Mr. Croker points out, that this rate of publication continued to the year 1792. But after all, the difference is trifling. Johnson here forgot to use his favourite cure for exaggeration--counting. See _post_, April 18, 1783. 'Round numbers,' he said, 'are always false.' Johnson's _Works_ (1787), xi. 198. Horace Walpole (_Letters_, viii. 300), after making a calculation, writes:--'I may err in my calculations, for I am a woeful arithmetician; but no matter, one large sum is as good as another.'

[638] The original passage is: 'Si non potes te talem facere, qualem vis, quomodo poteris alium ad tuum habere beneplacitum?' _De Imit. Christ_. lib. i. cap. xvi. J. BOSWELL, Jun.

[639] See p. 29 of this vol. BOSWELL.

[640] Since this was written the attainder has been reversed; and Nicholas Barnewall is now a peer of Ireland with this title. The person mentioned in the text had studied physick, and prescribed _gratis_ to the poor. Hence arose the subsequent conversation. MALONE.

[641] See Franklin's _Autobiography_ for his conversion from vegetarianism.

[642] See _ante_, ii. 217, where Johnson advised Boswell to keep a journal. 'The great thing to be recorded, is the state of your own mind.'

[643] 'Nobody can live long without knowing that falsehoods of convenience or vanity, falsehoods from which no evil immediately visible ensues, except the general degradation of human testimony, are very lightly uttered, and, once uttered, are sullenly supported.' Johnson's _Works_, viii. 23.

[644] _Literary Magazine_, 1756, p. 37. BOSWELL. Johnson's _Works_, vi. 42. See _post_, Oct. 10, 1779.

[645]

'Quodcunque ostendis mihi sic incredulus odi.' 'For while upon such monstrous scenes we gaze, They shock our faith, our indignation raise.'

FRANCIS. Horace, _Ars Poet_. 1. 188. Johnson speaks of 'the natural desire of man to propagate a wonder.' _Works_, vii. 2. 'Wonders,' he says, 'are willingly told, and willingly heard.' _Ib_. viii. 292. Speaking of Voltaire he says:--'It is the great failing of a strong imagination to catch greedily at wonders.' _Ib_. vi. 455. See _ante_, i. 309, note 3, ii. 247, and Boswell's _Hebrides_, Oct. 19, 1773. According to Mrs. Piozzi (_Anec_. p. 137) Hogarth said:--'Johnson, though so wise a fellow, is more like King David than King Solomon; for he says in his haste that all men are liars.'

[646] The following plausible but over-prudent counsel on this subject is given by an Italian writer, quoted by '_Rhedi de generatione insectarum_,' with the epithet of '_divini poetæ_:'

'_Sempre a quel ver ch'ha faccia di menzogna Dee l'uom chiuder le labbra quanto ei puote; Però che senza colpa fa vergogna_.' BOSWELL.

It is strange that Boswell should not have discovered that these lines were from Dante. The following is Wright's translation:--

'That truth which bears the semblance of a lie, Should never pass the lips, if possible; Tho' crime be absent, still disgrace is nigh.'

_Infern_. xvi. 124. CROKER.

[647] See _ante_, i. 7, note 1.

[648] See _ante_, i. 405.

[649] 'Of John Wesley he said:--"He can talk well on any subject."' _Post_, April 15, 1778. Southey says that 'his manners were almost irresistibly winning, and his cheerfulness was like perpetual sunshine.' _Life of Wesley_, i. 409. Wesley recorded on Dec. 18, 1783 (_Journal_, iv. 258):--'I spent two hours with that great man Dr. Johnson, who is sinking into the grave by a gentle decay.'

[650] 'When you met him in the street of a crowded city, he attracted notice, not only by his band and cassock, and his long hair white and bright as silver, but by his pace and manner, both indicating that all his minutes were numbered, and that not one was to be lost. "Though I am always in haste," he says of himself, "I am never in a hurry; because I never undertake any more work than I can go through with perfect calmness of spirit."' Southey's _Wesley_, ii. 397.

[651] No doubt the Literary Club. See _ante_, ii. 330, 345. Mr. Croker says 'that it appears by the books of the Club that the company on that evening consisted of Dr. Johnson president, Mr. Burke, Mr. Boswell, Dr. George Fordyce, Mr. Gibbon, Dr. Johnson (again named), Sir Joshua Reynolds, Lord Upper Ossory, and Mr. R. B. Sheridan.' E. no doubt stands for Edmund Burke, and J. for Joshua Reynolds. Who are meant by the other initials cannot be known. Mr. Croker hazards some guesses; but he says that Sir James Mackintosh and Chalmers were as dubious as himself.

[652] See Langhorne's _Plutarch_, ed. 1809, ii. 133.

[653] 'A man came in balancing a straw upon his nose, and the audience were clapping their hands in all the raptures of applause.' _The Citizen of the World_, Letter xxi. According to Davis (_Life of Garrick_, i. 113), 'in one year, after paying all expenses, £11,000 were the produce of Mr. Maddocks (the straw-man's agility), added to the talents of the players at Covent Garden theatre.'

[654] See _ante_, i. 399.

[655] 'Sir' said Edwards to Johnson (_post_, April 17, 1778), 'I remember you would not let us say _prodigious_ at College.'

[656] 'Emigration was at this time a common topick of discourse. Dr. Johnson regretted it as hurtful to human happiness.' Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 15, 1773.

[657] In 1766 Johnson wrote a paper (first published in 1808) to prove that 'the bounty upon corn has produced plenty.' 'The truth of these principles,' he says, 'our ancestors discovered by reason, and the French have now found it by experience. In this regulation we have the honour of being masters to those who, in commercial policy, have been long accounted the masters of the world.' _Works_, v. 323, 326, and _ante_, i. 518. 'In 1688 was granted the parliamentary bounty upon the exportation of corn. The country gentlemen had felt that the money price of corn was falling. The bounty was an expedient to raise it artificially to the high price at which it had frequently been sold in the times of Charles I. and II.' Smith's _Wealth of Nations_, book I. c. xi. The year 1792, the last year of peace before the great war, was likewise the last year of exportation. _Penny Cyclo_. viii. 22.

[658]

'Though fraught with all learning, yet straining his throat To persuade Tommy Townshend to lend him a vote.'

Goldsmith's _Retaliation_.

Horace Walpole says of Lord Mansfield's speech on the _Habeas Corpus Bill_ of 1758:--'Perhaps it was the only speech that in my time at least had real effect; that is, convinced many persons.' _Reign of George II_, iii. 120.

[659] Gibbon, who was now a member of parliament, was present at this dinner. In his _Autobiography_ (_Misc. Works_, i. 221) he says:--'After a fleeting illusive hope, prudence condemned me to acquiesce in the humble station of a mute.... Timidity was fortified by pride, and even the success of my pen discouraged the trial of my voice. But I assisted at the debates of a free assembly; I listened to the attack and defence of eloquence and reason; I had a near prospect of the character, views, and passions of the first men of the age.... The eight sessions that I sat in parliament were a school of civil prudence, the first and most essential virtue of an historian.'

[660] Horace, _Odes_, iii. 24, 46.

[661] Lord Bolingbroke, who, however detestable as a metaphysician, must be allowed to have had admirable talents as a political writer, thus describes the House of Commons, in his 'Letter to Sir William Wyndham:' --'You know the nature of that assembly; they grow, like hounds, fond of the man who shews them game, and by whose halloo they are used to be encouraged.' BOSWELL. Bolingbroke's _Works_, i. 15.

[662] Smollett says (_Journey_, i. 147) that he had a musquetoon which could carry eight balls. 'This piece did not fail to attract the curiosity and admiration of the people in every place through which we passed. The carriage no sooner halted than a crowd surrounded the man to view the blunderbuss, which they dignified with the name of _petit canon_. At Nuys in Burgundy, he fired it in the air, and the whole mob dispersed, and scampered off like a flock of sheep.'

[663] Smollett does not say that he frightened the nobleman. He mistook him for a postmaster and spoke to him very roughly. The nobleman seems to have been good-natured; for, at the next stage, says Smollett, 'observing that one of the trunks behind was a little displaced, he assisted my servant in adjusting it.' His name and rank were learnt later on. _Journey_, i. p. 134.

[664] The two things did not happen in the same town. 'I am sure, writes Thicknesse (_Travels_, ii. 147), 'there was but that single French nobleman in this mighty kingdom, who would have submitted to such insults as the Doctor _says_ he treated him with; nor any other town but Sens [it was Nuys] where the firing of a gun would have so terrified the inhabitants.'

[665] Both Smollett and Thicknesse were great grumblers.

[666] Lord Bolingbroke said of Lord Oxford:--'He is naturally inclined to believe the worst, which I take to be a certain mark of a mean spirit and a wicked soul; at least I am sure that the contrary quality, when it is not due to weakness of understanding, is the fruit of a generous temper and an honest heart.' Bolingbroke's _Works_, i. 25. Lord Eldon asked Pitt, not long before his death, what he thought of the honesty of mankind. 'His answer was, that he had a favourable opinion of mankind upon the whole, and that he believed that the majority was really actuated by fair meaning and intention.' Twiss's _Eldon_, i. 499.

[667] Johnson wrote in 175l:--'We are by our occupations, education, and habits of life, divided almost into different species, which regard one another, for the most part, with scorn and malignity.' _The Rambler_, No. 160. In No. 173 he writes of 'the general hostility which every part of mankind exercises against the rest to furnish insults and sarcasm.' In 1783 he said:--'I am ready now to call a man _a good man_ upon easier terms than I was formerly.' _Post_, under Aug. 29, 1783.

[668] Johnson thirty-four years earlier, in the _Life of Savage_ (_Works_, viii. 188), had written:--'The knowledge of life was indeed his chief attainment; and it is not without some satisfaction that I can produce the suffrage of Savage in favour of human nature.' On April 14, 1781, he wrote:--'The world is not so unjust or unkind as it is peevishly represented. Those who deserve well seldom fail to receive from others such services as they can perform; but few have much in their power, or are so stationed as to have great leisure from their own affairs, and kindness must be commonly the exuberance of content. The wretched have no compassion; they can do good only from strong principles of duty.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 199.

[669] Pope thus introduces this story:

'Faith in such case if you should prosecute, I think Sir Godfrey should decide the suit, Who send the thief who [that] stole the cash away, And punish'd him that put it in his way.'

_Imitations of Horace_, book II. epist. ii. [l. 23]. BOSWELL.

[670] Very likely Boswell himself. See _post_, July 17, 1779, where he put Johnson's friendship to the test by neglecting to write to him.

[671] No doubt Dr. Barnard, Dean of Derry, afterwards Bishop of Killaloe. See _ante_, p. 84.

[672] The reverse of the story of _Combabus_, on which Mr. David Hume told Lord Macartney, that a friend of his had written a tragedy. It is, however, possible that I may have been inaccurate in my perception of what Dr. Johnson related, and that he may have been talking of the same ludicrous tragical subject that Mr. Hume had mentioned. BOSWELL. The story of Combabus, which was originally told by Lucian, may be found in Bayle's _Dictionary_. MALONE.

[673] Horace Walpole, less than three months later, wrote (_Letters_, vii. 83):--'Poor Mrs. Clive has been robbed again in her own lane [in Twickenham] as she was last year. I don't make a visit without a blunderbuss; one might as well be invaded by the French.' Yet Wesley in the previous December, speaking of highwaymen, records (_Journal_, iv. 110):--'I have travelled all roads by day and by night for these forty years, and never was interrupted yet.' Baretti, who was a great traveller, says:--'For my part I never met with any robbers in my various rambles through several regions of Europe.' Baretti's _Journey from London to Genoa_, ii. 266.

[674] A year or two before Johnson became acquainted with the Thrales a man was hanged on Kennington Common for robbing Mr. Thrale. _Gent. Mag_. xxxiii. 411.

[675] The late Duke of Montrose was generally said to have been uneasy on that account; but I can contradict the report from his Grace's own authority. As he used to admit me to very easy conversation with him, I took the liberty to introduce the subject. His Grace told me, that when riding one night near London, he was attacked by two highwaymen on horseback, and that he instantly shot one of them, upon which the other galloped off; that his servant, who was very well mounted, proposed to pursue him and take him, but that his Grace said, 'No, we have had blood enough: I hope the man may live to repent.' His Grace, upon my presuming to put the question, assured me, that his mind was not at all clouded by what he had thus done in self-defence. BOSWELL.

[676] See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Sept. 22, for a discussion on signing death-warrants.

[677] 'Mr. Dunning the great lawyer,' Johnson called him, _ante_, p. 128. Lord Shelburne says:--'The fact is well known of the present Chief Justice of the Common Pleas (Lord Loughborough, formerly Mr. Wedderburne) beginning a law argument in the absence of Mr. Dunning, but upon hearing him hem in the course of it, his tone so visibly [sic] changed that there was not a doubt in any part of the House of the reason of it.' Fitzmaurice's _Shelburne_, iii. 454.

[678] 'The applause of a single human being,' he once said, 'is of great consequence.' _Post_, 1780, in Mr. Langton's _Collection_.

[679] Most likely Boswell's father, for he answers to what is said of this person. He was known to Johnson, he had married a second time, and he was fond of planting, and entertained schemes for the improvement of his property. See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Nov. 4 and 5, 1773. _Respectable_ was still a term of high praise. It had not yet come down to signify 'a man who keeps a gig.' Johnson defines it as 'venerable, meriting respect.' It is not in the earlier editions of his _Dictionary_. Boswell, in his _Hebrides_ (Oct. 27), calls Johnson the Duke of Argyle's 'respectable guest,' and _post_, under Sept. 5, 1780, writes of 'the _respectable_ notion which should ever be entertained of my illustrious friend.' Dr. Franklin in a dedication to Johnson describes himself as 'a sincere admirer of his _respectable_ talents;' _post_, end of 1780. In the _Gent. Mag_. lv. 235, we read that 'a stone now covers the grave which holds his [Dr. Johnson's] _respectable_ remains.' 'I do not know,' wrote Hannah More (_Memoirs_, i. 43) of Hampton Court, 'a more _respectable_ sight than a room containing fourteen admirals, all by Sir Godfrey.' Gibbon (_Misc. Works_, ii. 487), congratulating Lord Loughborough on becoming Lord Chancellor, speaks of the support the administration will derive 'from so _respectable_ an ally.' George III. wrote to Lord Shelburne on Sept. 16, 1782, 'when the tie between the Colonies and England was about to be formally severed,' that he made 'the most frequent prayers to heaven to guide me so to act that posterity may not lay the downfall of this once _respectable_ empire at my door.' Fitzmaurice's _Shelburne_, iii. 297. Lord Chesterfield (_Misc. Works_, iv. 308) writing of the hour of death says:--'That moment is at least a very _respectable_ one, let people who boast of not fearing it say what they please.'

[680] The younger Newbery records that Johnson, finding that he had a violin, said to him:--'Young man, give the fiddle to the first beggar man you meet, or you will never be a scholar.' _A Bookseller of the Last Century_, pp. 127, 145. See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Oct. 15.

[681] When I told this to Miss Seward, she smiled, and repeated, with admirable readiness, from _Acis and Galatea_,

'Bring me a hundred reeds of ample growth, To make a pipe for my CAPACIOUS MOUTH.' BOSWELL.

[682] See _post_, June 3, 1784, where Johnson again mentions this. In _The Spectator_, No. 536, Addison recommends knotting, which was, he says, again in fashion, as an employment for 'the most idle part of the kingdom; I mean that part of mankind who are known by the name of the women's-men, or beaus,' etc. In _The Universal Passion_, Satire i, Young says of fame:--

'By this inspired (O ne'er to be forgot!) Some lords have learned to spell, and some to knot.'

Lord Eldon says that 'at a period when all ladies were employed (when they had nothing better to do) in knotting, Bishop Porteous was asked by the Queen, whether she might knot on a Sunday. He answered, "You may not;" leaving her Majesty to decide whether, as _knot_ and _not_ were in sound alike, she was, or was not, at liberty to do so.' Twiss's _Eldon_, ii. 355.

[683] See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 23.

[684] See _post_, p. 248.

[685] Martin's style is wanting in that 'cadence which Temple gave to English prose' (_post_, p. 257). It would not be judged now so severely as it was a century ago, as the following instance will show:--'There is but one steel and tinder-box in all this commonwealth; the owner whereof fails not upon every occasion of striking fire in the lesser isles, to go thither, and exact three eggs, or one of the lesser fowls from each man as a reward for his service; this by them is called the Fire-Penny, and this Capitation is very uneasy to them; I bid them try their chrystal with their knives, which, when they saw it did strike fire, they were not a little astonished, admiring at the strangeness of the thing, and at the same time accusing their own ignorance, considering the quantity of chrystal growing under the rock of their coast. This discovery has delivered them from the Fire-Penny-Tax, and so they are no longer liable to it.'

[686] See _ante_, p. 226.