Chapter XX: Part 20

[870] Malone points out that the passage is not in Bacon, but in Boyle, and that it is quoted in Johnson's _Dictionary_ (in the later editions only), under _cross-bow._ It is as follows:--'Testimony is like the shot of a long-bow, which owes its efficacy to the force of the shooter; argument is like the shot of the cross-bow, equally forcible whether discharged by a giant or a dwarf.' See Smollett's _Works_, ed. 1797, i. cliv, for a somewhat fuller account by Dr. Moore of what was said by Johnson this evening.

[871] The Peace made by that very able statesman, the Earl of Shelburne, now Marquis of Lansdown, which may fairly be considered as the foundation of all the prosperity of Great Britain since that time. BOSWELL. In the winter of 1782-83, preliminary treaties of peace were made with the United States, France, and Spain; and a suspension of arms with Holland. The Ode is made up of such lines as the following:--

'While meek philosophy explores
Creation's vast stupendous round,
With piercing gaze sublime she soars,
And bursts the system's distant bound.'

_Gent. Mag._; 1783. p. 245.

[872] In the first edition of my Work, the epithet _amiable_ was given. I was sorry to be obliged to strike it out; but I could not in justice suffer it to remain, after this young lady had not only written in favour of the savage Anarchy with which France has been visited, but had (as I have been informed by good authority), walked, without horrour, over the ground at the Thuillieries, when it was strewed with the naked bodies of the faithful Swiss Guards, who were barbarously massacred for having bravely defended, against a crew of ruffians, the Monarch whom they had taken an oath to defend. From Dr. Johnson she could now expect not endearment but repulsion. BOSWELL.

[873] Rogers (_Table-Talk_, p. 50) described her as 'a very fascinating person,' and narrated a curious anecdote which he heard from her about the Reign of Terror.

[874] This year, forming as it did exactly a quarter of a century since Handel's death, and a complete century since his birth, was sought, says the _Gent. Mag._ (1784, p. 457) as the first public periodical occasion for bringing together musical performers in England. Dr. Burney writes (_Ann. Reg._ 1784, p. 331):--'Foreigners must have been astonished at so numerous a band, moving in such exact measure, without the assistance of a Coryphaeus to beat time. Rousseau says that "the more time is beaten, the less it is kept."' There were upwards of 500 performers.

[875] See _ante_, iii. 242.

[876] Lady Wronghead, whispers Mrs. Motherly, pointing to Myrtilla.

'_Mrs. Motherly_. Only a niece of mine, Madam, that lives with me; she will be proud to give your Ladyship any assistance in her power.

'_Lady Wronghead_. A pretty sort of a young woman--Jenny, you two must be acquainted.

'_Jenny_. O Mamma! I am never strange in a strange place. _Salutes Myrtilla_.' _The Provoked Husband; or, A Journey to London_, act ii. sc. 1, by Vanbrugh and Colley Gibber. It was not therefore Squire Richard whom Johnson quoted, but his sister.

[877] See _ante_, p. 191.

[878] See Macaulay's _Essays_, ed. 1843, i. 353, for his application of this story.

[879] She too was learned; for according to Hannah More (_Memoirs_, i. 292) she had learnt Hebrew, merely to be useful to her husband.

[880]

'This day then let us not be told,
That you are sick, and I grown old;
Nor think on our approaching ills,
And talk of spectacles and pills.'

Swift's _Lines on Stella's Birthday_, 1726-27. Works, ed. 1803, xi. 21.

[881] Dr. Newton, in his _Account of his own Life_, after animadverting upon Mr. Gibbon's _History_, says, 'Dr. Johnson's _Lives of the Poets_ afforded more amusement; but candour was much hurt and offended at the malevolence that predominates in every part. Some passages, it must be allowed, are judicious and well written, but make not sufficient compensation for so much spleen and ill humour. Never was any biographer more sparing of his praise, or more abundant in his censures. He seemingly delights more in exposing blemishes, than in recommending beauties; slightly passes over excellencies, enlarges upon imperfections, and not content with his own severe reflections, revives old scandal, and produces large quotations from the forgotten works of former criticks. His reputation was so high in the republick of letters, that it wanted not to be raised upon the ruins of others. But these _Essays_, instead of raising a higher idea than was before entertained of his understanding, have certainly given the world a worse opinion of his temper.--The Bishop was therefore the more surprized and concerned for his townsman, for _he respected him not only for his genius and learning, but valued him much more for the more amiable part of his character, his humanity and charity, his morality and religion.'_ The last sentence we may consider as the general and permanent opinion of Bishop Newton; the remarks which precede it must, by all who have read Johnson's admirable work, be imputed to the disgust and peevishness of old age. I wish they had not appeared, and that Dr. Johnson had not been provoked by them to express himself, not in respectful terms, of a Prelate, whose labours were certainly of considerable advantage both to literature and religion. BOSWELL.

[882] Newton was born Jan. 1, 1704, and was made Bishop in 1761. In his _Account of his own Life_ (p. 65) he says:--'He was no great gainer by his preferment; for he was obliged to give up the prebend of Westminster, the precentorship of York, the lecturership of St. George's, Hanover Square, and the _genteel office of sub-almoner_.' He died in 1781. His _Works_ were published in 1782. Gibbon, defending himself against an attack by Newton, says (_Misc. Works_, l. 24l):--'The old man should not have indulged his zeal in a false and feeble charge against the historian, who,' &c.

[883] _Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides,_ 3rd ed. p. 371 [Oct. 25]. BOSWELL. See _ante_, ii. 216.

[884] The Rev. Mr. Agutter [_post,_ under Dec. 20] has favoured me with a note of a dialogue between Mr. John Henderson [_post,_ June 12] and Dr. Johnson on this topick, as related by Mr. Henderson, and it is evidently so authentick that I shall here insert it:--HENDERSON. 'What do you think, Sir, of William Law?' JOHNSON. 'William Law, Sir, wrote the best piece of Parenetick Divinity; but William Law was no reasoner.' HENDERSON. 'Jeremy Collier, Sir?' JOHNSON. 'Jeremy Collier fought without a rival, and therefore could not claim the victory.' Mr. Henderson mentioned Kenn and Kettlewell; but some objections were made: at last he said, 'But, Sir, what do you think of Leslie?' JOHNSON. 'Charles Leslie I had forgotten. Leslie _was_ a reasoner, and _a reasoner who was not to be reasoned against.'_ BOSWELL.

For the effect of Law's 'Parenetick Divinity' on Johnson, see _ante_, i. 68. 'I am surprised,' writes Macaulay, 'that Johnson should have pronounced Law no reasoner. Law did indeed fall into great errors; but they were errors against which logic affords no security. In mere dialectical skill he had very few superiors.' Macaulay's _England_, ed. 1874, v. 81, note. Jeremy Collier's attack on the play-writers Johnson describes in his _Life of Congreve_ (_Works_, viii. 28), and continues:--'Nothing now remained for the poets but to resist or fly. Dryden's conscience, or his prudence, angry as he was, withheld him from the conflict: Congreve and Vanbrugh attempted answers.' Of Leslie, Lord Bolingbroke thus writes (_Works_, in. 45):--'Let neither the polemical skill of Leslie, nor the antique erudition of Bedford, persuade us to put on again those old shackles of false law, false reason, and false gospel, which were forged before the Revolution, and broken to pieces by it.' Leslie is described by Macaulay, _History of England_, v. 81.

[885] Burnet (_History of his own Time_, ed. 1818, iv. 303) in 1712 speaks of Hickes and Brett as being both in the Church, but as shewing 'an inclination towards Popery.' Hickes, he says, was at the head of the Jacobite party. See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Oct. 25.

[886] 'Only five of the seven were non-jurors; and anybody but Boswell would have known that a man may resist arbitrary power, and yet not be a good reasoner. Nay, the resistance which Sancroft and the other nonjuring Bishops offered to arbitrary power, while they continued to hold the doctrine of non-resistance, is the most decisive proof that they were incapable of reasoning.' Macaulay's _England_, ed. 1874, v. 81.

[887] See _ante_, ii. 321, for Johnson's estimate of the Nonjurors, and i. 429 for his Jacobitism.

[888] Savage's _Works_, ed. 1777, ii. 28.

[889] See _ante_, p. 46.

[890] See Boswell's _Hebrides, post_, v. 77.

[891] I have inserted the stanza as Johnson repeated it from memory; but I have since found the poem itself, in _The Foundling Hospital for Wit_, printed at London, 1749. It is as follows:--

'EPIGRAM, _occasioned by a religious dispute at Bath_.

'On Reason, Faith, and Mystery high,
Two wits harangue the table;
B----y believes he knows not why.
N---- swears 'tis all a fable.
Peace, coxcombs, peach, and both agree,
N----, kiss they empty brother:
Religion laughs at foes like thee,
And dreads a friend like t'other.'

BOSWELL. The disputants are supposed to have been Beau Nash and Bentley, the son of the doctor, and the friend of Walpole. Croker. John Wesley in his _Journal_, i. 186, tells how he once silences Nash.

[892] See ante, ii. 105.

[893] Waller, in his _Divine Poesie_, canto first, has the same thought finely expressed:--

'The Church triumphant, and the Church below,
In songs of praise their present union show;
Their joys are full; our expectation long,
In life we differ, but we join in song;
Angels and we assisted by this art,
May sing together, though we dwell apart.'

BOSWELL.

[894] See Boswell's _Hebrides_, post, v. 45.

[895] In the original, _flee_.

[896] The sermon thus opens:--'That there are angels and spirits good and bad; that at the head of these last there is ONE more considerable and malignant than the rest, who, in the form, or under the name of a _serpent_, was deeply concerned in the fall of man, and whose _head_, as the prophetick language is, the son of man was one day to _bruise_; that this evil spirit, though that prophecy be in part completed, has not yet received his death's wound, but is still permitted, for ends unsearchable to us, and in ways which we cannot particularly explain, to have a certain degree of power in this world hostile to its virtue and happiness, and sometimes exerted with too much success; all this is so clear from Scripture, that no believer, unless he be first of all _spoiled by philosophy and vain deceit [Colossians_, ii. 8], can possibly entertain a doubt of it.'

Having treated of _possessions_, his Lordship says, 'As I have no authority to affirm that there _are_ now any such, so neither may I presume to say with confidence, that there are _not_ any.'

'But then with regard to the influence of evil spirits at this day upon the SOULS of men, I shall take leave to be a great deal more peremptory.--(Then, having stated the various proofs, he adds,) All this, I say, is so manifest to every one who reads the Scriptures, that, if we respect their authority, the question concerning the reality of the demoniack influence upon the minds of men is clearly determined.'

Let it be remembered, that these are not the words of an antiquated or obscure enthusiast, but of a learned and polite Prelate now alive; and were spoken, not to a vulgar congregation, but to the Honourable Society of Lincoln's-Inn. His Lordship in this sermon explains the words, 'deliver us from evil,' in the Lord's Prayer, as signifying a request to be protected from 'the evil one,' that is the Devil. This is well illustrated in a short but excellent Commentary by my late worthy friend, the Reverend Dr. Lort, of whom it may truly be said, _Multis ille bonis flebilis occidit_. It is remarkable that Waller, in his _Reflections on the several Petitions, in that sacred form of devotion_, has understood this in the same sense;--

'Guard us from all temptations of the FOE.'

BOSWELL. Dr. Lort is often mentioned in Horace Walpole's _Letters_. Multis ille _quidem_ flebilis occidit,' comes from Horace, _Odes_, i. xxiv. 9, translated by Francis,--

How did the good, the virtuous mourn.'

For Dr. Hurd see _ante_, p. 189.

[897] There is a curious anecdote of this physician in _Gent. Mag._ 1772, p. 467.

[898] See _ante_, p. 166. He may have taken the more to Fox, as he had taken to Beauclerk (_ante_, i. 248), on account of his descent from Charles II. Fox was the great-great-grandson of that king. His Christian names recall his Stuart ancestry.

[899] Horace Walpole wrote on April 11 (_Letters_, viii. 469):--'In truth Mr. Fox has all the popularity in Westminster; and, indeed, is so amiable and winning that, could he have stood in person all over England, I question whether he would not have carried the Parliament.' Hannah More (_Memoirs_, i. 316) in the same month wrote:--'Unluckily for my principles I met Fox canvassing the other day, and he looked so sensible and agreeable, that if I had not turned my eyes another way, I believe it would have been all over with me.' See _ante_, p. 279.

[900] Dr. John Radcliffe, who died in 1714, left by his will, among other great benefactions to the University of Oxford, '£600 yearly to two persons, when they are Masters of Arts and entered on the physic-line, for their maintenance for the space of ten years; the half of which time at least they are to travel in parts beyond sea for their better improvement.' _Radcliffe's Life and Will_, p. 123. Pope mentions them in his _Imitations of Horace, Epistles_, ii. i. 183:--

'E'en Radcliffe's doctors travel first to France,
Nor dare to practise till they've learned to dance.'

[901] What risks were run even by inoculation is shewn in two of Dr. Warton's letters. He wrote to his brother:--'This moment the dear children have all been inoculated, never persons behaved better, no whimpering at all, I hope in God for success, but cannot avoid being in much anxiety.' A few days later he wrote:--'You may imagine I never passed such a day as this in my life! grieved to death myself for the loss of so sweet a child, but forced to stifle my feelings as much as possible for the sake of my poor wife. She does not, however, hit on, or dwell on, that most cutting circumstance of all, poor Nanny's dying, as it were by our own means, tho' well intended indeed.' Wooll's _Warton_, i. 289. Dr. Franklin (_Memoirs_, i. 155), on the other hand, bitterly regretted that he had not had a child inoculated, whom he lost by small-pox.

[902] See _post_, before Nov. 17, and under Dec. 9, 1784.

[903] 'I am the vilest of sinners and the worst of men.' Taylor's _Works_ (ed. 1864), iii. 31. 'The best men deserve not eternal life, and I who am the worst may have it given me.' _Ib_. p. 431--'He that hath lived worst, even I.' _Ib_. vii. 241. 'Behold me the meanest of thy creatures.' _Ib_. p. 296.

[904] 'You may fairly look upon yourself to be the greatest sinner that you know in the world. First, because you know more of the folly of your own heart than you do of other people's; and can charge yourself with various sins that you only know of yourself, and cannot be sure that other people are guilty of them.' Law's _Serious Call_, chap. 23.

[905] 1 _Timothy_, i. 15.

[906] See _post_, v. 68, note 4.

[907] 'Be careful thou dost not speak a lie in thy prayers, which though not observed is frequently practised by careless persons, especially in the forms of confession, affirming things which they have not thought, professing sorrow which is not, making a vow they mean not.' Taylor's _Works_, ed. 1865, vii. 622.

[908] Reynolds wrote:--'As in Johnson's writings not a line can be found which a saint would wish to blot, so in his life he would never suffer the least immorality or indecency of conversation, [or anything] contrary to virtue or piety to proceed without a severe check, which no elevation of rank exempted them from.' Taylor's _Reynolds_, ii. 458. See _ante_, iii. 41.

[909] No doubt Mr. Langton.

[910] Dr. Sheridan tells how Swift overheard a Captain Hamilton say to a gentleman at whose house he had arrived 'that he was very sorry he had chosen that time for his visit. "Why so?" "Because I hear Dean Swift is with you. He is a great scholar, a wit; a plain country squire will have but a bad time of it in his company, and I don't like to be laughed at." Swift then stepped up and said, "Pray, Captain Hamilton, do you know how to say _yes_ or _no_ properly?" "Yes, I think I have understanding enough for that." "Then give me your hand--depend upon it, you and I will agree very well."' 'The Captain told me,' continues Sheridan, 'that he never passed two months so pleasantly in his life.' Swift's _Works_, ed. 1803, ii. 104.

[911] Gibbon wrote on Feb. 21, 1772 (_Misc. Works_, ii. 78):--'To day the House of Commons was employed in a very odd way. Tommy Townshend moved that the sermon of Dr. Nowell, who preached before the House on the 30th of January (_id est_, before the Speaker and four members), should be burnt by the common hangman, as containing arbitrary, Tory, high-flown doctrines. The House was nearly agreeing to the motion, till they recollected that they had already thanked the preacher for his excellent discourse, and ordered it to be printed.'

[912]

'Although it be not _shined_ upon.'
_Hudibras_, iii. 2, 175.

[913] According to Mr. Croker, this was the Rev. Henry Bate, of the _Morning Post_, who in 1784 took the name of Dudley, was created a baronet in 1815, and died in 1824. Horace Walpole wrote on Nov. 13, 1776 (_Letters_, vi. 39l):--'Yesterday I heard drums and trumpets in Piccadilly: I looked out of the window and saw a procession with streamers flying. At first I thought it a press-gang, but seeing the corps so well-drest, like Hussars, in yellow with blue waistcoats and breeches, and high caps, I concluded it was some new body of our allies, or a regiment newly raised, and with new regimentals for distinction. I was not totally mistaken, for the Colonel is _a new ally_. In short, this was a procession set forth by Mr. Bate, Lord Lyttelton's chaplain, and author of the old _Morning Post_, and meant as an appeal to the town against his antagonist, the new one.' In June, 1781, Bate was sentenced to a year's imprisonment 'for an atrocious libel on the Duke of Richmond. He was the worst of all the scandalous libellers that had appeared both on private persons as well as public. His life was dissolute, and he had fought more than one duel. Yet Lord Sandwich had procured for him a good Crown living, and he was believed to be pensioned by the Court.' Walpole's _Journal of the Reign of George III_, ii. 464.

[914] See _ante_, ii. 339, and iii. 265.

[915] Three days earlier, in the debate on the Westminster Scrutiny, Fox accused 'a person of great rank in this House'--Pitt I believe--'of adding pertness and personal contumely to every species of rash and inconsiderate violence.' _Parl. Hist_. xxiv. 924. Pitt, in reply, classed Fox among 'political apostates,' _ib_. p. 929. Burke, the same evening, 'sat down saying, "he little minded the ill-treatment of a parcel of boys."' When he was called to order, he said:--'When he used the term "a parcel of boys," he meant to apply it to the ministry, who, he conceived, were insulting him with their triumph; a triumph which grey hairs ought to be allowed the privilege of expressing displeasure at, when it was founded on the rash exultation of mere boys.' _Ib_. p. 939. Pitt, Prime-Minister though he was, in the spring of the same year, was called to order by the Speaker, for charging a member with using 'language the most false, the most malicious, and the most slanderous.' _Ib_. p. 763.

[916] _Epistles to Mr. Pope_, ii. 165.

[917] See an account of him, in a sermon by the Reverend Mr. Agutter. BOSWELL. This sermon was published in 1788. In Hannah More's _Memoirs_ (i. 217), Henderson is described as 'a mixture of great sense, which discovered uncommon parts and learning, with a tincture of nonsense of the most extravagant kind. He believes in witches and apparitions, as well as in judicial astronomy.' Mrs. Kennicott writes (_ib_. p. 220):--'I think if Dr. Johnson had the shaking him about, he would shake out his nonsense, and set his sense a-working. 'He never got out into the world, says Dr. Hall, the Master of Pembroke College, having died in College in 1788.

[918] This was the second Lord Lyttelton, commonly known as 'the wicked Lord Lyttelton.' Fox described him to Rogers as 'a very bad man--downright wicked.' Rogers's _Table Talk_, p. 95. He died Nov. 27, 1779. Horace Walpole (_Letters_, vii. 292) wrote to Mason on Dec. 11 of that year:--'If you can send us any stories of ghosts out of the North, they will be very welcome. Lord Lyttelton's vision has revived the taste; though it seems a little odd that an apparition should despair of being able to get access to his Lordship's bed in the shape of a young woman, without being forced to use the disguise of a robin-red-breast.' In the _Gent. Mag._ 1815, i. 597, and 1816, ii. 421, accounts are given of this vision. In the latter account it is said that 'he saw a bird fluttering, and afterwards a woman appeared in white apparel, and said, "Prepare to die; you will not exist three days."' Mrs. Piozzi also wrote a full account of it. Hayward's _Piozzi_, i. 332.

[919] See _ante_, ii. 150, and iii. 298, note 1.

[920] See _ante_, p. 278.

[921] 'If he who considers himself as suspended over the abyss of eternal perdition only by the thread of life, which must soon part by its own weakness, and which the wing of every minute may divide, can cast his eyes round him without shuddering with horror, or panting for security; what can he judge of himself, but that he is not yet awakened to sufficient conviction? &c.' _The Rambler_, No. 110. In a blank leaf in the book in which Johnson kept his diary of his journey in Wales is written in his own hand, 'Faith in some proportion to Fear.' Duppa's Johnson's _Diary of a Journey &c_., p. 157. See _ante_, iii. 199.

[922] He wrote to Mrs. Thrale on March 20:--'Write to me no more about _dying with a grace_; when you feel what I have felt in approaching eternity--in fear of soon hearing the sentence of which there is no revocation, you will know the folly.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 354. Of him it might have been said in Cowper's words:--

'Scripture is still a trumpet to his fears.'

_The Task: The Winter Morning Walk_, 1. 611. See _ante_, iii. 294.

[923] The Reverend Mr. Ralph Churton, Fellow of Brazen-Nose College, Oxford, has favoured me with the following remarks on my Work, which he is pleased to say, 'I have hitherto extolled, and cordially approve.'

'The chief part of what I have to observe is contained in the following transcript from a letter to a friend, which, with his concurrence, I copied for this purpose; and, whatever may be the merit or justness of the remarks, you may be sure that being written to a most intimate friend, without any intention that they ever should go further, they are the genuine and undisguised sentiments of the writer:--

'Jan. 6, 1792.

'Last week, I was reading the second volume of Boswell's _Johnson_, with increasing esteem for the worthy authour, and increasing veneration of the wonderful and excellent man who is the subject of it. The writer throws in, now and then, very properly some serious religious reflections; but there is one remark, in my mind an obvious and just one, which I think he has not made, that Johnson's "morbid melancholy," and constitutional infirmities, were intended by Providence, like St. Paul's thorn in the flesh, to check intellectual conceit and arrogance; which the consciousness of his extraordinary talents, awake as he was to the voice of praise, might otherwise have generated in a very culpable degree. Another observation strikes me, that in consequence of the same natural indisposition, and habitual sickliness, (for he says he scarcely passed one day without pain after his twentieth year,) he considered and represented human life, as a scene of much greater misery than is generally experienced. There may be persons bowed down with affliction all their days; and there are those, no doubt, whose iniquities rob them of rest; but neither calamities nor crimes, I hope and believe, do so much and so generally abound, as to justify the dark picture of life which Johnson's imagination designed, and his strong pencil delineated. This I am sure, the colouring is far too gloomy for what I have experienced, though as far as I can remember, I have had more sickness (I do not say more severe, but only more in quantity,) than falls to the lot of most people. But then daily debility and occasional sickness were far overbalanced by intervenient days, and, perhaps, weeks void of pain, and overflowing with comfort. So that in short, to return to the subject, human life, as far as I can perceive from experience or observation, is not that state of constant wretchedness which Johnson always insisted it was; which misrepresentation, (for such it surely is,) his Biographer has not corrected, I suppose, because, unhappily, he has himself a large portion of melancholy in his constitution, and fancied the portrait a faithful copy of life.'

The learned writer then proceeds thus in his letter to me:--

'I have conversed with some sensible men on this subject, who all seem to entertain the same sentiments respecting life with those which are expressed or implied in the foregoing paragraph. It might be added that as the representation here spoken of, appears not consistent with fact and experience, so neither does it seem to be countenanced by Scripture. There is, perhaps, no part of the sacred volume which at first sight promises so much to lend its sanction to these dark and desponding notions as the book of _Ecclesiastes_, which so often, and so emphatically, proclaims the vanity of things sublunary. But the design of this whole book, (as it has been justly observed,) is not to put us out of conceit with life, but to cure our vain expectations of a compleat and perfect happiness in this world; to convince us, that there is no such thing to be found in mere external enjoyments;--and to teach us to seek for happiness in the practice of virtue, in the knowledge and love of God, and in the hopes of a better life. For this is the application of all; _Let us hear_, &c. xii. 13. Not only his duty, but his happiness too; _For_ GOD, &c. ver. 14.--See _Sherlock on Providence_, p. 299.

'The New Testament tells us, indeed, and most truly, that "sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof;" and, therefore, wisely forbids us to increase our burden by forebodings of sorrows; but I think it no where says that even our ordinary afflictions are not consistent with a very considerable degree of positive comfort and satisfaction. And, accordingly, one whose sufferings as well as merits were conspicuous, assures us, that in proportion "as the sufferings of Christ abounded in them, so their consolation also abounded by Christ." 2 _Cor_. i. 5. It is needless to cite, as indeed it would be endless even to refer to, the multitude of passages in both Testaments holding out, in the strongest language, promises of blessings, even in this world, to the faithful servants of GOD. I will only refer to _St. Luke_, xviii. 29, 30, and 1 _Tim_. iv. 8.

'Upon the whole, setting aside instances of great and lasting bodily pain, of minds peculiarly oppressed by melancholy, and of severe temporal calamities, from which extraordinary cases we surely should not form our estimate of the general tenour and complexion of life; excluding these from the account, I am convinced that as well the gracious constitution of things which Providence has ordained, as the declarations of Scripture and the actual experience of individuals, authorize the sincere Christian to hope that his humble and constant endeavours to perform his duty, checquered as the best life is with many failings, will be crowned with a greater degree of present peace, serenity, and comfort, than he could reasonably permit himself to expect, if he measured his views and judged of life from the opinion of Dr. Johnson, often and energetically expressed in the Memoirs of him, without any animadversion or censure by his ingenious Biographer. If he himself, upon reviewing the subject, shall see the matter in this light, he will, in an octavo edition, which is eagerly expected, make such additional remarks or correction as he shall judge fit; lest the impressions which these discouraging passages may leave on the reader's mind, should in any degree hinder what otherwise the whole spirit and energy of the work tends, and, I hope, successfully, to promote,--pure morality and true religion.'

Though I have, in some degree, obviated any reflections against my illustrious friend's dark views of life, when considering, in the course of this Work, his _Rambler_ [_ante_, i. 213] and his _Rasselas_ [_ante_, i. 343], I am obliged to Mr. Churton for complying with my request of his permission to insert his Remarks, being conscious of the weight of what he judiciously suggests as to the melancholy in my own constitution. His more pleasing views of life, I hope, are just. _Valeant quantum valere possunt_.

Mr. Churton concludes his letter to me in these words:--'Once, and only once, I had the satisfaction of seeing your illustrious friend; and as I feel a particular regard for all whom he distinguished with his esteem and friendship, so I derive much pleasure from reflecting that I once beheld, though but transiently near our College gate, one whose works will for ever delight and improve the world, who was a sincere and zealous son of the Church of England, an honour to his country, and an ornament to human nature.'

His letter was accompanied with a present from himself of his _Sermons at the Bampton Lecture_, and from his friend, Dr. Townson, the venerable Rector of Malpas, in Cheshire, of his _Discourses on the Gospels_, together with the following extract of a letter from that excellent person, who is now gone to receive the reward of his labours:--'Mr. Boswell is not only very entertaining in his works, but they are so replete with moral and religious sentiments, without an instance, as far as I know, of a contrary tendency, that I cannot help having a great esteem for him; and if you think such a trifle as a copy of the _Discourses, ex dono authoris_, would be acceptable to him, I should be happy to give him this small testimony of my regard.'

Such spontaneous testimonies of approbation from such men, without any personal acquaintance with me, are truly valuable and encouraging. BOSWELL.

[924]

'Tout se plaint, tout gémit en cherchant le bien-etre;
Nul ne voudrait mourir, nul ne voudrait renaitre.'

Voltaire, _Le désastre de Lisbonne. Works_, ed. 1819, x. 124. 'Johnson said that, for his part, he never passed that week in his life which he would wish to repeat, were an angel to make the proposal to him.' _Ante_, ii. 125. Yet Dr. Franklin, whose life overlapped Johnson's at both ends, said:-'I should have no objection to go over the same life from its beginning to the end, requesting only the advantage authors have of correcting in a second edition the faults of its first. So would I also wish to change some incidents of it for others more favourable Notwithstanding, if this condition was denied, I should still accept the offer of re-commencing the same life.' Franklin's _Memoirs_, i. 2.

[925] Mackintosh thus sums up this question:--'The truth is, that endless fallacies must arise from the attempt to appreciate by retrospect human life, of which the enjoyments depend on hope.' _Life of Mackintosh_, ii. 160. See _ante_, ii. 350.

[926] In the lines on Levett. _Ante_, p. 137.

[927] AURENGZEBE, act iv. sc. 1. BOSWELL. According to Dr. Maxwell (_ante_, ii. 124), Johnson frequently quoted the fourth couplet of these lines. Boswell does not give the last--

'I'm tired with waiting for this chemic gold
Which fools us young, and beggars us when old.'

[928] Johnson, speaking of the companions of his college days, said:-- 'It was bitterness which they mistook for frolick.' _Ante_, i. 73.

[929]

'--to thee I call
But with no friendly voice, and add thy name
O Sun, to tell thee how I hate thy beams.'

Milton's _Paradise Lost_, iv. 35.

[930] Yet there is no doubt that a man may appear very gay in company who is sad at heart. His merriment is like the sound of drums and trumpets in a battle, to drown the groans of the wounded and dying. BOSWELL.

[931] Mme. D'Arblay (_Memoirs of Dr. Burney_, ii. 103) tells how Johnson was one day invited to her father's house at the request of Mr. Greville, 'the finest gentleman about town,' as she earlier described him (_ib_. i. 25), who desired to make his acquaintance. This 'superb' gentleman was afraid to begin to speak. 'Assuming his most supercilious air of distant superiority he planted himself, immovable as a noble statue, upon the hearth, as if a stranger to the whole set.' Johnson, who 'never spoke till he was spoken to' (_ante_, in. 307)--this habit the Burneys did not as yet know--'became completely absorbed in silent rumination; very unexpectedly, however, he shewed himself alive to what surrounded him, by one of those singular starts of vision, that made him seem at times, though purblind to things in common, gifted with an eye of instinct for espying any action that he thought merited reprehension; for all at once, looking fixedly on Mr. Greville, who without much self-denial, the night being very cold, kept his station before the chimney-piece, he exclaimed:--"If it were not for depriving the ladies of the fire, I should like to stand upon the hearth myself." A smile gleamed upon every face at this pointed speech. Mr. Greville tried to smile himself, though faintly and scoffingly. He tried also to hold his post; and though for two or three minutes he disdained to move, the awkwardness of a general pause impelled him ere long to glide back to his chair; but he rang the bell with force as he passed it to order his carriage.'

[932] Page 139. BOSWELL.

[933] On this same day Miss Adams wrote to a friend:--'Dr. Johnson, tho' not in good health, is in general very talkative and infinitely agreeable and entertaining.' _Pemb. Coll. MSS_.

[934] Johnson said 'Milton was a _Phidias_, &c.' _Ante_, p. 99, note 1. In his _Life of Milton_ (_Works, vii. 119) he writes:--'Milton never learnt the art of doing little things with grace; he overlooked the milder excellence of suavity and softness; he was a _Lion_ that had no skill _in dandling the kid_.'

['Sporting the lion ramped, and in his paw
Dandled the kid.'

_Paradise Lost_, iv. 343.]

[935] Cardinal Newman (_History of my Religious Opinions_, ed. 1865, p. 361) remarks on this:--'As to Johnson's case of a murderer asking you which way a man had gone, I should have anticipated that, had such a difficulty happened to him, his first act would have been to knock the man down, and to call out for the police; and next, if he was worsted in the conflict, he would not have given the ruffian the information he asked, at whatever risk to himself. I think he would have let himself be killed first. I do not think that he would have told a lie.'

[936] See _ante_, iii. 376.

[937] Book ii. 1. 142.

[938] The annotator calls them 'amiable verses.' BOSWELL. The annotators of the _Dunciad_ were Pope himself and Dr. Arbuthnot. Johnson's _Works_, viii. 280.

[939] Boswell was at this time corresponding with Miss Seward. See _post_, June 25.

[940] By John Dyer. _Ante_, ii. 453.

[941] Lewis's Verses addressed to Pope were first published in a Collection of Pieces on occasion of _The Dunciad_, 8vo., 1732. They do not appear in Lewis's own _Miscellany_, printed in 1726.--_Grongar Hill_ was first printed in Savage's _Miscellanies_ as an Ode, and was _reprinted_ in the same year in Lewis's _Miscellany_, in the form it now bears.

In his _Miscellanies_, 1726, the beautiful poem,--'Away, let nought to love displeasing,'--reprinted in Percy's _Reliques_, vol. i. book iii. No. 13, first appeared. MALONE.

[942] See _ante_, p. 58.

[943] See _ante_, i. 71, and ii. 226.

[944] Captain Cook's third voyage. The first two volumes by Captain Cook; the last by Captain King.

[945] See _ante_, ii. 73, 228, 248; iii. 49.

[946]

'--quae mollissima fandi Tempora.'
'--time wherein the word May softliest be said.'

MORRIS. Virgil, _Aeneids_, iv. 293.

[947] See _ante_, i. 71.

[948] See _ante_, i. 203, note 6.

[949] Boswell began to eat dinners in the Inner Temple so early as 1775. _Ante_, ii. 377, note 1. He was not called till Hilary Term, 1786. Rogers's _Boswelliana_, p. 143.

[950] Mr. (afterwards Sir) William Jones wrote two years earlier (_Life_, p. 268):--'Whether it be a wise part to live uncomfortably in order to die wealthy, is another question; but this I know by experience, and have heard old practitioners make the same observation, that a lawyer who is in earnest must be chained to his chambers and the bar for ten or twelve years together.'

[951] Johnson's _Prologue at the opening of Drury Lane Theatre. Works, _ i. 23.

[952] According to Mr. Seward, who published this account in his _Anecdotes,_ ii. 83, it was Mr. Langton's great-grandfather who drew it up.

[953] 'My Lord said that his rule for his, health was to be temperate and keep himself warm. He never made breakfasts, but used in the morning to drink a glass of some sort of ale. That he went to bed at nine, and rose between six and seven, allowing himself a good refreshment for his sleep. That the law will admit of no rival, nothing to go even with it; but that sometimes one may for diversion read in the Latin historians of England, Hoveden and Matthew Paris, &c. But after it is conquered, it will admit of other studies. He said, a little law, a good tongue, and a good memory, would fit a man for the Chancery.' Seward's _Anecdotes_, ii. 92.

[954] Wednesday was the 16th

[955] See _ante_, i. 41.

[956] _Letters to Mrs. Thrale_, vol. ii. p. 372. BOSWELL.

[957] See _ante/_, i. 155.

[958] The recommendation in this list of so many histories little agrees 'with the fierce and boisterous contempt of ignorance' with which, according to Lord Macaulay, Johnson spoke of history. Macaulay's _Essays_, ed. 1843, i. 403.

[959] See _ante_, iii. 12.

[960] Northcote's account of Reynolds's table suits the description of this 'gentleman's mode of living.' 'A table prepared for seven or eight was often compelled to contain fifteen or sixteen.' There was a 'deficiency of knives and forks, plates and glasses. The attendance was in the same style.' There were 'two or three undisciplined domestics. The host left every one at perfect liberty to scramble for himself.' 'Rags' is certainly a strong word to apply to any of the company; but then strong words were what Johnson used. Northcote mentions 'the mixture of company.' Northcote's _Reynolds_, ii. 94-6. See _ante_, iii. 375, note 2.

[961] The Mayor of Windsor. Rogers's _Boswelliana_, p. 211.

[962] The passage occurs in Brooke's _Earl of Essex_(1761) at the close of the first act, where Queen Elizabeth says:

'I shall henceforth seek
For other lights to truth; for righteous monarchs,
Justly to judge, with their own eyes should see;
_To rule o'er freemen should themselves be free_.'
_Notes and Queries_, 5th S. viii. 456.

The play was acted at Drury Lane Theatre, old Mr. Sheridan taking the chief part. He it was who, in admiration, repeated the passage to Johnson which provoked the parody. Murphy's _Garrick_, p. 234.

[963] 'Letters to Mrs. Thrale, vol. ii. p. 284. BOSWELL. In a second letter (_ib_. p. 347) he says:--'Cator has a rough, manly independent understanding, and does not spoil it by complaisance.' Miss Burney accuses him of emptiness, verbosity and pomposity, all of which she describes in an amusing manner. Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii. 47.

[964] 'All general reflections upon nations and societies are the trite, thread-bare jokes of those who set up for wit without having any, and so have recourse to common-place.' Chesterfield's _Letters_, i. 231.

[965] See vol. ii. p. 126. BOSWELL

[966] '"That may be so," replied the lady, "for ought I know, but they are above my comprehension." "I an't obliged to find you comprehension, Madam, curse me," cried he,' _Roderick Random_, ch. 53. '"I protest," cried Moses, "I don't rightly comprehend the force of your reasoning." "O, Sir," cried the Squire, "I am your most humble servant, I find you want me to furnish you with argument and intellects too."' _Vicar of Wakefield_, ch. 7.

[967] In the first edition, 'as the Honourable Horace Walpole is often called;' in the second edition, 'as Horace, now Earl of Orford, &c.' Walpole succeeded to the title in Dec. 1791. In answer to congratulations he wrote (_Letters_, ix. 364):--'What has happened destroys my tranquillity.... Surely no man of seventy-four, unless superannuated, can have the smallest pleasure in sitting at home in his own room, as I almost always do, and being called by a new name.' He died March 2, 1797.

[968] In _The Rambler_, No. 83, a character of a virtuoso is given which in many ways suits Walpole:--'It is never without grief that I find a man capable of ratiocination or invention enlisting himself in this secondary class of learning; for when he has once discovered a method of gratifying his desire of eminence by expense rather than by labour, and known the sweets of a life blest at once with the ease of idleness and the reputation of knowledge, he will not easily be brought to undergo again the toil of thinking, or leave his toys and trinkets for arguments and principles.'

[969] Walpole says:--'I do not think I ever was in a room with Johnson six times in my days.' _Letters_, ix. 319. 'The first time, I think, was at the Royal Academy. Sir Joshua said, "Let me present Dr. Goldsmith to you;" he did. "Now I will present Dr. Johnson to you." "No," said I, "Sir Joshua; for Dr. Goldsmith, pass--but you shall not present Dr. Johnson to me."' _Journal &c. of Miss Berry_, i. 305. In his _Journal of the Reign of George III_, he speaks of Johnson as 'one of the venal champions of the Court,' 'a renegade' (i. 430); 'a brute,' 'an old decrepit hireling' (_ib._ p. 472); and as 'one of the subordinate crew whom to name is to stigmatize' (_ib._ ii. 5). In his _Memoirs of the Reign of George III_, iv. 297, he says:--'With a lumber of learning and some strong parts Johnson was an odious and mean character. His manners were sordid, supercilious, and brutal; his style ridiculously bombastic and vicious, and, in one word, with all the pedantry he had all the gigantic littleness of a country schoolmaster.'

[970] See _ante_, i. 367.

[971] On May 26, 1791, Walpole wrote of Boswell's _Life of Johnson (Letters_ ix. 3l9):--'I expected amongst the excommunicated to find myself, but am very gently treated. I never would be in the least acquainted with Johnson; or, as Boswell calls it, I had not a just value for him; which the biographer imputes to my resentment for the Doctor's putting bad arguments (purposely out of Jacobitism) into the speeches which he wrote fifty years ago for my father in the _Gentleman's Magazine_; which I did not read then, or ever knew Johnson wrote till Johnson died.' Johnson said of these Debates:--'I saved appearances tolerably well; but I took care that the Whig dogs should not have the best of it.' _Ante_, i. 504. 'Lord Holland said that whenever Boswell came into a company where Horace Walpole was, Walpole would throw back his head, purse up his mouth very significantly, and not speak a word while Boswell remained.' _Autobiographical Recollections of C. R. Leslie_, i. 155. Walpole (_Letters_, viii. 44) says:--'Boswell, that quintessence of busybodies, called on me last week, and was let in, which he should not have been, could I have foreseen it. After tapping many topics, to which I made as dry answers as an unbribed oracle, he vented his errand.'

[972] Walpole wrote (_Letters_, vi. 44):--'If _The School for Wives_ and _The Christmas Tale_ were laid to me, so was _The Heroic Espistle_. I could certainly have written the two former, but not the latter.' See _ante_, iv. 113.

[973] The title given by Bishop Pearson to his collection of Hales's Writings is the _Golden Remains of the Ever Memorable John Hales of Eaton College, &c_. It was published in 1659.

[974] I _Henry IV_, act ii. sc. 4. 'Sir James Mackintosh remembers that, while spending the Christmas of 1793 at Beaconsfield, Mr. Burke said to him, 'Johnson showed more powers of mind in company than in his writings; but he argued only for victory; and when he had neither a paradox to defend, nor an antagonist to crush, he would preface his assent with "Why, no, Sir."' CROKER. Croker's _Boswell_, p. 768.

[975]

Search then the ruling passion: There alone
The wild are constant, and the cunning known;
The fool consistent, and the false sincere;
Priests, princes, women, no dissemblers here.'
Pope, _Moral Essays_, i. 174.

'The publick pleasures of far the greater part of mankind are counterfeit.' _The Idler_, No. 18.

[976] _Ante_, ii. 241, and iii. 325.

[977] Boswell refers to Cicero's _Treatise on Famous Orators_.

[978] Boswell here falls into a mistake. About harvest-time in 1766, there were corn-riots owing to the dearness of bread. By the Act of the 15th of Charles II, corn, when under a certain price, might be legally exported. On Sept. 26, 1766, before this price had been reached, the Crown issued a proclamation to prohibit the exportation of grain. When parliament met in November, a bill of indemnity was brought in for those concerned in the late embargo. 'The necessity of the embargo was universally allowed;' it was the exercise by the Crown of a power of dispensing with the laws that was attacked. Some of the ministers who, out of office, 'had set up as the patrons of liberty,' were made the object 'of many sarcasms on the beaten subject of occasional patriotism.' _Ann. Reg._ x. 39-48, and Dicey's _Law of the Constitution_, p. 50.

[979] _St. Mark_, ii. 9.

[980] _Anecdotes_, p. 43. BOSWELL. The passage is from the _Speech on Conciliation with the Colonies_, March 22, 1775. Payne's _Burke_, i. 173. The image of the angel and Lord Bathurst was thus, according to Mrs. Piozzi, parodied by Johnson:--'Suppose, Mr. Speaker, that to Wharton, or to Marlborough, or to any of the eminent Whigs of the last age, the devil had, not with great impropriety, consented to appear.' See _ante_, iii. 326, where Johnson said 'the first Whig was the Devil.'

[981] Boswell was stung by what Mrs. Piozzi wrote when recording this parody. She said that she had begged Johnson's leave to write it down directly. 'A trick,' she continues, 'which I have seen played on common occasions of sitting steadily [? stealthily] down at the other end of the room to write at the moment what should be said in company, either by Dr. Johnson or to him, I never practised myself, nor approved of in another. There is something so ill-bred, and so inclining to treachery in this conduct, that, were it commonly adopted, all confidence would soon be exiled from society.' See _post_, under June 30, 1784, where Boswell refers to this passage.

[982]

'Who'er offends, at some unlucky time
Slides into verse, and hitches in a rhyme.'

Pope, _Imitations of Horace_, 2 Satires, i. 78.

[983] On March 14, 1770, in a debate on the licentiousness of the press, Townshend joined together Johnson and Shebbeare. Burke, who followed him, said nothing about Johnson. Fitzherbert, speaking of Johnson as 'my friend,' defended him as 'a pattern of morality.' _Cavendish Debates_, i.514. On Feb. 16, 1774, when Fox drew attention to a 'vile libel' signed _A South Briton_, Townshend said 'Dr. Shebbeare and Dr. Johnson have been pensioned, but this wretched South Briton is to be prosecuted.' It was Fox, and not Burke, who on this occasion defended Johnson. _Parl. Hist._ xvii.1054. As Goldsmith was writing _Retaliation_ at the very time that this second attack was made, it is very likely that it was the occasion, of the change in the line.

[984] In the original _yet_.

[985]

'Sis pecore et multa dives tellure licebit,
Tibique Pactolus fluat.'
'Though wide thy land extends, and large thy fold,
Though rivers roll for thee their purest gold.'

FRANCIS. Horace, _Epodes_, xv. 19.

[986] See Macaulay's _Essays_, ed. 1843, i. 404, for Macaulay's appropriation and amplification of this passage.

[987] See _ante_, ii. 168.

[988] Mr. Croker suggests the Rev. Martin Sherlock, an Irish Clergyman, 'who published in 1781 his own travels under the title of _Letters of an English Traveller translated from the French._' Croker's _Boswell, p. 770. Mason writes of him as 'Mister, or Monsieur, or Signor Sherlock, for I am told he is both [sic] French, English, and Italian in print.' Walpole's _Letters_, viii. 202. I think, however, that Dr. Thomas Campbell is meant. His _Philosophical Survey of the South of Ireland_ Boswell calls 'a very entertaining book, which has, however, one fault;--that it assumes the fictitious character of an Englishman.' _Ante_, ii. 339.

[989] See _ante_, iv. 49.

[990] This anecdote is not in the first two editions.

[991] See _ante_, in. 369.

[992] 'I have heard,' says Hawkins (_Life_, p. 409), 'that in many instances, and in some with tears in his eyes, he has apologised to those whom he had offended by contradiction or roughness of behaviour.' See _ante_, ii. 109, and 256, note 1.

[993] Johnson (_Works_, viii. 131) describes Savage's 'superstitious regard to the correction of his sheets ... The intrusion or omission of a comma was sufficient to discompose him, and he would lament an errour of a single letter as a heavy calamity.'

[994] Compositor in the Printing-house means, the person who adjusts the types in the order in which they are to stand for printing; and arranges what is called the _form_, from which an impression is taken. BOSWELL.

[995] This circumstance therefore alluded to in Mr. Courtenay's _Poetical Character_ of him is strictly true. My informer was Mrs. Desmoulins, who lived many years in Dr. Johnson's house. BOSWELL. The following are Mr. Courtenay's lines:--

'Soft-eyed compassion with a look benign,
His fervent vows he offered at thy shrine;
To guilt, to woe, the sacred debt was paid,
And helpless females blessed his pious aid;
Snatched from disease, and want's abandoned crew,
Despair and anguish from their victims flew;
Hope's soothing balm into their bosoms stole,
And tears of penitence restored the soul.'

[996] The _Cross Readings_ were said to be formed 'by reading two columns of a newspaper together onwards,' whereby 'the strangest connections were brought about,' such as:--

'This morning the Right Hon. the Speaker
was convicted of keeping a disorderly house.
Whereas the said barn was set on fire by
an incendiary letter dropped early in the morning.
By order of the Commissioners for Paving
An infallible remedy for the stone and gravel.
The sword of state was carried
before Sir John Fielding and committed to Newgate.'

_The New Foundling Hospital for Wit_, i. 129. According to Northcote (_Life of Reynolds_, i. 217), 'Dr. Goldsmith declared, in the heat of his admiration of these _Cross Readings_, it would have given him more pleasure to have been the author of them than of all the works he had ever published of his own.' Horace Walpole (Letters, v. 30) writes:-- 'Have you seen that delightful paper composed out of scraps in the newspapers? I laughed till I cried. I mean the paper that says:--

"This day his Majesty will go in great state to fifteen notorious common prostitutes."'