Chapter XXI: Part 21

[997] One of these gentlemen was probably Mr. Musgrave (_ante_, ii. 343, note 2), who, says Mrs. Piozzi (_Anec_. p. 295), when 'once he was singularly warm about Johnson's writing the lives of our famous prose authors, getting up and entreating him to set about the work immediately, he coldly replied, "Sit down, Sir."' Miss Burney says that 'the incense he paid Dr. Johnson by his solemn manner of listening, by the earnest reverence with which he eyed him, and by a theatric start of admiration every time he spoke, joined to the Doctor's utter insensibility to all these tokens, made me find infinite difficulty in keeping my countenance.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii. 85. The other gentleman was perhaps Dr. Wharton. _Ante_, ii. 41, note 1.

[998] Probably Dr. Beattie. The number of letters in his name agrees with the asterisks given a few lines below. _Ante_, iii. 339, note 1, and _post_, p. 330.

[999] Johnson, in his _Dictionary_, defines _congé d'élire_ as _the king's permission royal to a dean and chapter in time of vacation, to choose a bishop._ When Dr. Hampden was made Bishop of Hereford in 1848, the Dean resisted the appointment. H. C. Robinson records, on the authority of the Bishop's Secretary (_Diary_, iii. 311), that 'at the actual confirmation in Bow Church the scene was quite ludicrous. After the judge had told the opposers that he could not hear them, the citation for opposers to come forward was repeated, at which the people present laughed out, as at a play.'

[1000] This has been printed in other publications, 'fall _to the ground_.' But Johnson himself gave me the true expression which he had used as above; meaning that the recommendation left as little choice in the one case as the other. BOSWELL. One of the 'other publications is Hawkins's edition of Johnson's _Works_. See in it vol. xi. p. 216.

[1001] They are published in vol. xi. of Hawkins's edition of Johnson's _Works_. 1787, and are often quoted in my notes. It should be remembered that Steevens is not trustworthy. See _ante_, iii. 281, and iv. 178.

[1002] See _ante_, ii. 96.

[1003] See _ante_, p. iii.

[1004] _She Stoops to Conquer_ was first acted on March 15, 1773. The King of Sardinia had died on Feb. 20. _Gent. Mag_. 1773, pp. 149, 151.

[1005] Hannah More (_Memoirs_, i. 170) describes how, in 1780, she went to one of Mrs. Ord's assemblies at a time when 'the mourning for some foreign Wilhelmina Jaquelina was not over. Every human creature was in deep mourning, and I, poor I, all gorgeous in scarlet. Even Jacobite Johnson was in deep mourning.'

[1006] In the tenth edition of the _Rambler_, published in 1784, the entry is still found:--'Milton, Mr. John, remarks on his versification.' In like manner we find:--'Shakspeare, Mr. William, his eminent success in tragi-comedy;' 'Spenser, Mr. Edmund, some imitations of his diction censured;' 'Cowley, Mr. Abraham, a passage in his writing illustrated.'

[1007] See _ante_, p. 116.

[1008] See _ante_, iii. 425, note 3.

[1009] Hawkins (_Life_, p. 571) writes:--'The plan for Johnson's visiting the Continent became so well known, that, as a lady then resident at Rome afterwards informed me, his arrival was anxiously expected throughout Italy.'

[1010] Edward Lord Thurlow. BOSWELL.

[1011] See _ante_, p. 179.

[1012] In 1778.

[1013] 'With Lord Thurlow, while he was at the bar, Johnson was well acquainted. He said to Mr. Murphy twenty years ago, "Thurlow is a man of such vigour of mind that I never knew I was to meet him, but--I was going to tell a falsehood; I was going to say I was afraid of him, and that would not be true, for I was never afraid of any man--but I never knew that I was to meet Thurlow, but I knew I had something to encounter."' _Monthly Review_ for 1787, lxxvi. 382. Murphy, no doubt, was the writer. Lord Campbell (_Lives of the Chancellors_, ed. 1846, v.621) quotes from 'the Diary of a distinguished political character' an account of a meeting between Thurlow and Horne Tooke, in 1801. 'Tooke evidently came forward for a display, and as I considered his powers of conversation as surpassing those of any person I had ever seen (in point of skill and dexterity, and if necessary in _lying_), so I took for granted old grumbling Thurlow would be obliged to lower his top-sail to him--but it seemed as if the very _look_ and _voice_ of Thurlow scared him out of his senses from the first moment. So Tooke tried to recruit himself by wine, and, though not generally a drinker, was very drunk, but all would not do.'

[1014] It is strange that Sir John Hawkins should have related that the application was made by Sir Joshua Reynolds, when he could so easily have been informed of the truth by inquiring of Sir Joshua. Sir John's carelessness to ascertain facts is very remarkable. BOSWELL.

[1015] There is something dreadful in the thought of the old man quietly going on with his daily life within a few hundred yards of this shocking scene of slaughter, this 'legal massacre,' to use his own words (_ante_, p. 188, note 3). England had a kind of Reign of Terror of its own; little thought of at the time or remembered since. Twenty-four men were sentenced to death at the Old Bailey Sessions that ended on April 28. On June 16 nine of these had the sentence commuted; the rest were hanged this day. Among these men was not a single murderer. Twelve of them had committed burglary, two a street robbery, and one had personated another man's name, with intent to receive his wages. _Ann. Reg_. xxvii, 193, and _Gent. Mag_. liv. 379, 474. The _Gent. Mag_. recording the sentences, remarks:--'Convicts under sentence of death in Newgate and the gaols throughout the kingdom increase so fast, that, were they all to be executed, England would soon be marked among the nations as the _Bloody Country_.' In the spring assizes the returns are given for ten towns. There were 88 capital convictions, of which 21 were at Winchester. _Ib_. 224. In the summer assizes and at the Old Bailey Sessions for July there were 149 capital convictions. At Maidstone a man on being sentenced 'gave three loud cheers, upon which the judge gave strict orders for his being chained to the floor of the dungeon.' _Ib_. pp. 311, 633. The hangman was to grow busier yet. This increase in the number of capital punishments was attributed by Romilly in great part to Madan's _Thoughts on Executive Justice_; 'a small tract, in which, by a mistaken application of the maxim "that the certainty of punishment is more efficacious than its severity for the prevention of crimes," he absurdly insisted on the expediency of rigidly enforcing, in every instance, our penal code, sanguinary and barbarous as it was. In 1783, the year before the book was published, there were executed in London only 51 malefactors; in 1785, the year after the book was published, there were executed 97; and it was recently after the publication of the book that was exhibited a spectacle unseen in London for a long course of years before, the execution of nearly 20 criminals at a time.' _Life of Romilly_, i. 89. Madan's Tract was published in the winter of 1784-5. Boswell's fondness for seeing executions is shewn, _ante_, ii. 93.

[1016] See _ante_, ii. 82, 104; iii. 290; and v. 7l.

[1017] A friend of mine happened to be passing by a _field congregation_ in the environs of London, when a Methodist preacher quoted this passage with triumph. BOSWELL. On Dec. 26, 1784, John Wesley preached the condemned criminals' sermon to forty-seven who were under sentence of death. He records:--'The power of the Lord was eminently present, and most of the prisoners were in tears. A few days after, twenty of them died at once, five of whom died in peace. I could not but greatly approve of the spirit and behaviour of Mr. Villette, the Ordinary; and I rejoiced to hear that it was the same on all similar occasions.' Wesley's _Journal_, ed. 1827, iv. 287.

[1018] I trust that THE CITY OF LONDON, now happily in unison with THE COURT, will have the justice and generosity to obtain preferment for this Reverend Gentleman, now a worthy old servant of that magnificent Corporation. BOSWELL. In like manner, Boswell in 1768 praised the Rev. Mr. Moore, Mr. Villette's predecessor. 'Mr. Moore, the Ordinary of Newgate, discharged his duty with much earnestness and a fervour for which I and all around me esteemed and loved him. Mr. Moore seems worthy of his office, which, when justly considered, is a very important one.' _London Mag._ 1783, p. 204. For the quarrel between the City and the Court, see _ante_, iii. 201.

[1019] See _ante_, i. 387.

[1020] Knox in _Winter Evenings_, No. xi. (_Works_, ii. 348), attacks Johnson's biographers for lowering his character by publishing his private conversation. 'Biography,' he complains, 'is every day descending from its dignity.' See _ante_, i. 222, note 1.

[1021] _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 256.

[1022] Johnson wrote on April 15:--'I am still very weak, though my appetite is keen and my digestion potent. ... I now think and consult to-day what I shall eat to-morrow. This disease likewise will, I hope, be cured.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 362. Beattie, who dined with Johnson on June 27, wrote:--'Wine, I think, would do him good, but he cannot be prevailed on to drink it. He has, however, a voracious appetite for food. I verily believe that on Sunday last he ate as much to dinner as I have done in all for these ten days past.' Forbes's _Beattie_, ed. 1824, p. 315. It was said that Beattie latterly indulged somewhat too much in wine. _Ib_. p. 432.

[1023] Horace Walpole wrote in April 1750 (_Letters_, ii. 206):--'There is come from France a Madame Bocage who has translated Milton: my Lord Chesterfield prefers the copy to the original; but that is not uncommon for him to do, who is the patron of bad authors and bad actors. She has written a play too, which was damned, and worthy my lord's approbation.' It was this lady who bade her footman blow into the spout of the tea-pot. _Ante_, ii. 403. Dr. J. H. Burton writes of her in his _Life of Hume_, ii. 213:--'The wits must praise her bad poetry if they frequented her house. "Elle était d'une figure aimable," says Grimm, "elle est bonne femme; elle est riche; elle pouvait fixer chez elle les gens d'esprit et de bonne compagnie, sans les mettre dans l'embarras de lui parler avec peu de sincérité de sa Colombiade ou de ses Amazones."'

[1024] It is the sea round the South Pole that she describes in her _Elegy_ (not _Ode_). The description begins:--

'While o'er the deep in many a dreadful form,
The giant Danger howls along the storm,
_Furling the iron sails with numbed hands,
Firm on the deck the great Adventurer stands;_
Round glitt'ring mountains hear the billows rave,
And the vast ruin thunder on the wave.'

In the _Gent. Mag._ 1793, p. 197, were given extracts abusive of Johnson from some foolish letters that passed between Miss Seward and Hayley, a poet her equal in feebleness. Boswell, in his _Corrections and Additions to the First Edition_ (_ante_, i.10), corrected an error into which he had been led by Miss Seward (_ante_, i.92, note 2). She, in the _Gent. Mag._ for 1793, p.875, defended herself and attacked him. His reply is found on p.1009. He says:--'As my book was to be a _real history_, and not a _novel_, it was necessary to suppress all erroneous particulars, however entertaining.' (_Ante_, ii 467, note 4.) He continues:--'So far from having any hostile disposition towards this Lady, I have, in my _Life of Dr. Johnson_...quoted a compliment paid by him to one of her poetical pieces; and I have withheld his opinion of herself, thinking that she might not like it. I am afraid it has reached her by some other means; and thus we may account for various attacks by her on her venerable townsman since his decease...What are we to think of the scraps of letters between her and Mr. Hayley, impotently attempting to undermine the noble pedestal on which the publick opinion has placed Dr. Johnson?'

[1025] See _ante_, i.265, and iv. 174.

[1026] 'Johnson said he had once seen Mr. Stanhope at Dodsley's shop, and was so much struck with his awkward manners and appearance that he could not help asking Mr. Dodsley who he was.' Johnson's _Works_, (1787) xi.209.

[1027] Chesterfield was Secretary of State from Nov. 1746 to Feb. 1748. His letters to his son extend from 1739 to 1768.

[1028] Foote had taken off Lord Chesterfield in _The Cozeners_. Mrs. Aircastle trains her son Toby in the graces. She says to her husband:--'Nothing but grace! I wish you would read some late _Posthumous Letters_; you would then know the true value of grace.' Act ii. sc. 2.

[1029] See _ante_, p.78, note 1.

[1030] See a pamphlet entitled _Remarks on the Characters of the Court of Queen Anne_, included in Swift's _Works_, ed. 1803, vi. 163.

[1031] Carleton, according to the _Memoirs_, made his first service in the navy in 1672--seventeen years before the siege of Derry. There is no mention of this siege in the book.

[1032] 'He had obtained, by his long service, some knowledge of the practic part of an engineer.' Preface to the _Memoirs_.

[1033] Nearly 200 pages in Bohn's edition. See _ante_, i. 71, for Johnson's rapid reading.

[1034] Lord Mahon (_War of the Succession in Spain_, Appendix, p. 131) proves that a Captain Carleton really served. 'It is not impossible,' he says, 'that the MS. may have been intrusted to De Foe for the purpose of correction or revision...The _Memoirs_ are most strongly marked with internal proofs of authenticity.' Lockhart (_Life of Scott_, iii. 84) says:--'It seems to be now pretty generally believed that Carleton's _Memoirs_ were among the numberless fabrications of De Foe; but in this case (if the fact indeed be so), as in that of his _Cavalier_, he no doubt had before him the rude journal of some officer.' Dr. Burton (_Reign of Queen Anne_ ii. 173) says that MSS. in the British Museum disprove 'the possibility of De Foe's authorship.'

[1035] Lord Chesterfield (_Letters_, ii. 109) writing to his son on Nov. 29, 1748, says of Mr. Eliot:--'Imitate that application of his, which has made him know all thoroughly, and to the bottom. He does not content himself with the surface of knowledge; but works in the mine for it, knowing that it lies deep.'

[1036] The Houghton Collection was sold in 1779 by the third Earl of Orford, to the Empress of Russia for £40,555. (Walpole's _Letters_, vii. 227, note 1.)

Horace Walpole wrote on Aug. 4 of that year (_ib_. p. 235):--'Well! adieu to Houghton! about its mad master I shall never trouble myself more. From the moment he came into possession, he has undermined every act of my father that was within his reach, but, having none of that great man's sense or virtues, he could only lay wild hands on lands and houses; and since he has stript Houghton of its glory, I do not care a straw what he does with the stone or the acres.'

[1037] This museum at Alkerington near Manchester is described in the _Gent. Mag_. 1773, p.219. A proposal was made in Parliament to buy it for the British Museum. _Ib_. 1783, p. 919. On July 8, 1784, a bill enabling Lever to dispose of it by lottery passed the House of Commons. _Ib_. 1784, p.705.

[1038] Johnson defines _intuition_ as _sight of anything; immediate knowledge_; and _sagacity_ as _quickness of scent; acuteness of discovery_.

[1039] In the first edition it stands '_A gentleman_' and below instead of Mr. ----, Mr. ----. In the second edition Mr. ---- becomes Mr. ----. In the third edition _young_ is added. Young Mr. Burke is probably meant. As it stood in the second edition it might have been thought that Edmund Burke was the gentleman; the more so as Johnson often denied his want of wit.

[1040] _Hamlet_, act i. sc. 2.

[1041] See _ante_, i. 372, note 1.

[1042] Windham says (_Diary_, p. 34) that when Dr. Brocklesby made this offer 'Johnson pressed his hands and said, "God bless you through Jesus Christ, but I will take no money but from my sovereign." This, if I mistake not, was told the King through West.' Dr. Brocklesby wrote to Burke, on July 2, 1788, to make him 'an instant present of £1000, which,' he continues, 'for years past, by will, I had destined as a testimony of my regard on my decease.' Burke, accepting the present, said:--'I shall never be ashamed to have it known, that I am obliged to one who never can be capable of converting his kindness into a burthen.' Burke's _Corres._ iii.78. See _ante_, p. 263, for the just praise bestowed by Johnson on physicians in his _Life of Garth_.

[1043] See _ante_, ii. 194.

[1044] _Letters to Mrs. Thrale_, vol. ii. p 375. BOSWELL.

[1045] Rogers (_Table-Talk_, p. 45) describes him as 'a very handsome, gentlemanly, and amiable person. Mme. D'Arblay tells how one evening at Dr. Burney's home, when Signor Piozzi was playing on the piano, 'Mrs. Thrale stealing on tip-toe behind him, ludicrously began imitating him. Dr. Burney whispered to her, "Because, Madam, you have no ear yourself for music, will you destroy the attention of all who in that one point are otherwise gifted?"' Mrs. Thrale took this rebuke very well. This was her first meeting with Piozzi. It was in Mr. Thrale's life-time. _Memoirs of Dr. Burney_, ii. 110.

[1046] Dr. Johnson's letter to Sir John Hawkins, _Life_, p. 570. BOSWELL. The last time Miss Burney saw Johnson, not three weeks before his death, he told her that the day before he had seen Miss Thrale. 'I then said:--"Do you ever, Sir, hear from mother?" "No," cried he, "nor write to her. I drive her quite from my mind. If I meet with one of her letters, I burn it instantly. I have burnt all I can find. I never speak of her, and I desire never to hear of her more. I drive her, as I said, wholly from my mind."' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii. 328.

[1047] See _ante_, i. 493.

[1048] _Anec_. p. 293. BOSWELL.

[1049] 'The saying of the old philosopher who observes, "that he who wants least is most like the gods who want nothing," was a favourite sentence with Dr. Johnson, who on his own part required less attendance, sick or well, than ever I saw any human creature. Conversation was all he required to make him happy.' Piozzi's _Anec_. p.275. Miss Burney's account of the life at Streatham is generally very cheerful. I suspect that the irksome confinement described by Mrs. Piozzi was not felt by her till she became attached to Mr. Piozzi. This caused a great change in her behaviour and much unhappiness. (_Ante_, p. 138, note 4.) He at times treated her harshly. (_Ante_, p. 160, note.) Two passages in her letters to Miss Burney shew a want of feeling in her for a man who for nearly twenty years had been to her almost as a father. On Feb. 18, 1784, she writes:--'Johnson is in a sad way doubtless; yet he may still with care last another twelve-month, and every week's existence is gain to him, who, like good Hezekiah, wearies Heaven with entreaties for life. I wrote him a very serious letter the other day.' On March 23 she writes:--' My going to London would be a dreadful expense, and bring on a thousand inquiries and inconveniences--visits to Johnson and from Cator.' It is likely that in other letters there were like passages, but these letters Miss Burney 'for cogent reasons destroyed.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii. 305, 7, 8.

[1050]
'Bless'd paper credit! last and best supply!
That lends corruption lighter wings to fly!'

Pope, _Moral Essays_, iii. 39.

[1051] Who has been pleased to furnish me with his remarks. BOSWELL. No doubt Malone, who says, however: 'On the whole the publick is indebted to her for her lively, though very inaccurate and artful, account of Dr. Johnson.' Prior's _Malone_, p. 364.

[1052] See _ante_, iii. 81.

[1053] _Anec._ p. 183. BOSWELL.

[1054] Hannah More. She, with her sisters, had kept a boarding-school at Bristol.

[1055] She first saw Johnson in June, 1774. According to her _Memoirs_ (i. 48) he met her 'with good humour in his countenance, and continued in the same pleasant humour the whole of the evening.' She called on him in Bolt Court. One of her sisters writes:--'Miss Reynolds told the doctor of all our rapturous exclamations [about him] on the road. He shook his scientific head at Hannah, and said, "She was a silly thing."' _Ib_. p. 49. 'He afterwards mentioned to Miss Reynolds how much he had been touched with the enthusiasm of the young authoress, which was evidently genuine and unaffected.' _Ib_. p. 50. She met him again in the spring of 1775. Her sister writes:--'The old genius was extremely jocular, and the young one very pleasant. They indeed tried which could "pepper the highest" [Goldsmith's _Retaliation_], and it is not clear to me that he was really the highest seasoner.' _Ib_. p. 54. From the Mores we know nothing of his reproof. He had himself said of 'a literary lady'--no doubt Hannah More--'I was obliged to speak to Miss Reynolds to let her know that I desired she would not flatter me so much.' _Ante_, iii.293. Miss Burney records a story she had from Mrs. Thrale, 'which,' she continues, 'exceeds, I think, in its severity all the severe things I have yet heard of Dr. Johnson's saying. When Miss More was introduced to him, she began singing his praise in the warmest manner. For some time he heard her with that quietness which a long use of praise has given him: she then redoubled her strokes, till at length he turned suddenly to her, with a stern and angry countenance, and said, "Madam, before you flatter a man so grossly to his face, you should consider whether or not your flattery is worth his having."' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, i.103. Shortly afterwards Miss Burney records (_ib_. p. 121) that Mrs. Thrale said to him:--'We have told her what you said to Miss More, and I believe that makes her afraid.' He replied:--'Well, and if she was to serve me as Miss More did, I should say the same thing to her.' We have therefore three reports of what he said--one from Mrs. Thrale indirectly, one from her directly, and the third from Malone. However severe the reproof was, the Mores do not seem to have been much touched by it. At all events they enjoyed the meeting with Johnson, and Hannah More needed a second reproof that was conveyed to her through Miss Reynolds.

[1056] _Anec._ p. 202. BOSWELL.

[1057] See _ante_, i. 40, 68, 92, 415, 481; ii. 188, 194; iii. 229; and _post_, v. 245, note 2.

[1058] _Anec._ p. 44. BOSWELL. See _ante_, p. 318, _note_ 1, where I quote the passage.

[1059] _Ib_. p. 23. BOSWELL.

[1060] _Ib_. p. 45. Mr. Hayward says:--'She kept a copious diary and notebook called _Thraliana_ from 1776 to 1809. It is now,' [1861] he continues, 'in the possession of Mr. Salusbury, who deems it of too private and delicate a character to be submitted to strangers, but has kindly supplied me with some curious passages from it.' Hayward's _Piozzi_, i. 6.

[1061] _Ib_. p. 51 [192]. BOSWELL.

[1062] _Anec._ p. 193 [51]. BOSWELL.

[1063] Johnson, says Murphy, (_Life_, p. 96) 'felt not only kindness, but zeal and ardour for his friends.' 'Who,' he asks (_ib_. p. 144), 'was more sincere and steady in his friendships?' 'Numbers,' he says (_ib_. p. 146), 'still remember with gratitude the friendship which he shewed to them with unaltered affection for a number of years.'

[1064] See _ante_, ii. 285, and iii. 440.

[1065] Johnson's _Works_, i. 152, 3.

[1066] In vol. ii. of the _Piozzi Letters_ some of these letters are given.

[1067] He gave Miss Thrale lessons in Latin. Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary,_ i. 243 and 427.

[1068] _Anec._ p. 258. BOSWELL.

[1069] George James Cholmondeley, Esq., grandson of George, third Earl of Cholmondeley, and one of the Commissioners of Excise; a gentleman respected for his abilities, and elegance of manners. BOSWELL. When I spoke to him a few years before his death upon this point, I found him very sore at being made the topic of such a debate, and very unwilling to remember any thing about either the offence or the apology. CROKER.

[1070] _Letters to Mrs. Thrale,_ vol. ii. p. 12. BOSWELL.

[1071] Mrs. Piozzi (_Anec._p. 258) lays the scene of this anecdote 'in some distant province, either Shropshire or Derbyshire, I believe.' Johnson drove through these counties with the Thrales in 1774 (_ante_, ii. 285). If the passage in the letter refers to the same anecdote--and Mrs. Piozzi does not, so far as I know, deny it--more than three years passed before Johnson was told of his rudeness. Baretti, in a MS. note on _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 12, says that the story was 'Mr. Cholmondeley's running away from his creditors.' In this he is certainly wrong; yet if Mr. Cholmondeley had run away, and others gave the same explanation of the passage, his soreness is easily accounted for.

[1072] _Anec_. p. 23. BOSWELL.

[1073] _Ib_. p. 302. BOSWELL.

[1074] _Rasselas_, chap, xvii

[1075] _Paradise Lost_, iv. 639.

[1076] _Anec_. p. 63. BOSWELL.

[1077] 'Johnson one day, on seeing an old terrier lie asleep by the fire-side at Streatham, said, "Presto, you are, if possible, a more lazy dog that I am."' Johnson's _Works_, ed. 1787, xi. 203.

[1078] Upon mentioning this to my friend Mr. Wilkes, he, with his usual readiness, pleasantly matched it with the following _sentimental anecdote_. He was invited by a young man of fashion at Paris, to sup with him and a lady, who had been for some time his mistress, but with whom he was going to part. He said to Mr. Wilkes that he really felt very much for her, she was in such distress; and that he meant to make her a present of two hundred louis-d'ors. Mr. Wilkes observed the behaviour of Mademoiselle, who sighed indeed very piteously, and assumed every pathetick air of grief; but eat no less than three French pigeons, which are as large as English partridges, besides other things. Mr. Wilkes whispered the gentleman, 'We often say in England, _Excessive sorrow is exceeding dry_, but I never heard _Excessive sorrow is exceeding hungry_. Perhaps _one_ hundred will do.' The gentleman took the hint. BOSWELL.

[1079] See _post_, p. 367, for the passage omitted.

[1080] Sir Joshua Reynolds, on account of the excellence both of the sentiment and expression of this letter, took a copy of it which he shewed to some of his friends; one of whom, who admired it, being allowed to peruse it leisurely at home, a copy was made, and found its way into the newspapers and magazines. It was transcribed with some inaccuracies. I print it from the original draft in Johnson's own hand-writing. BOSWELL. Hawkins writes (_Life_, p. 574):--'Johnson, upon being told that it was in print, exclaimed in my hearing, "I am betrayed," but soon after forgot, as he was ever ready to do all real or supposed injuries, the error that made the publication possible.'

[1081] Cowper wrote of Thurlow:--'I know well the Chancellor's benevolence of heart, and how much he is misunderstood by the world. When he was young he would do the kindest things, and at an expense to himself which at that time he could ill afford, and he would do them too in the most secret manner.' Southey's _Cowper_, vii. 128. Yet Thurlow did not keep his promise made to Cowper when they were fellow-clerks in an attorney's office. 'Thurlow, I am nobody, and shall be always nobody, and you will be chancellor. You shall provide for me when you are.' He smiled, and replied, 'I surely will.' _Ib._ i. 41. When Cowper sent him the first volume of his poems, 'he thought it not worth his while,' the poet writes, 'to return me any answer, or to take the least notice of my present.' _Ib._ xv. 176. Mr. (afterwards Sir) W. Jones, in two letters to Burke, speaks of Thurlow as the [Greek: thaerion] (beast). 'I heard last night, with surprise and affliction,' he wrote on Feb. 15, 1783,'that the [Greek: thaerion] was to continue in office. Now I can assure you from my own positive knowledge (and I know him well), that although he hates _our_ species in general, yet his particular hatred is directed against none more virulently than against Lord North, and the friends of the late excellent Marquis.' Burke's _Corres._ ii. 488, and iii. 10.

[1082] 'Scarcely had Pitt obtained possession of unbounded power when an aged writer of the highest eminence, who had made very little by his writings, and who was sinking into the grave under a load of infirmities and sorrows, wanted five or six hundred pounds to enable him, during the winter or two which might still remain to him, to draw his breath more easily in the soft climate of Italy. Not a farthing was to be obtained; and before Christmas the author of the _English Dictionary_ and of the _Lives of the Poets_ had gasped his last in the river fog and coal smoke of Fleet-street.' _Macaulay's Writings and Speeches,_ ed. 1871, p. 413. Just before Macaulay, with monstrous exaggeration, says that Gibbon, 'forced by poverty to leave his country, completed his immortal work on the shores of Lake Leman.' This poverty of Gibbon would have been 'splendour' to Johnson. Debrett's Royal Kalendar, for 1795 (p. 88), shews that there were twelve Lords of the King's Bedchamber receiving each £1000 a year, and fourteen Grooms of the Bedchamber receiving each, £500 a year. As Burns was made a gauger, so Johnson might have been made a Lord, or at least a Groom of the Bedchamber. It is not certain that Pitt heard of the application for an increased pension. Mr. Croker quotes from Thurlow's letter to Reynolds of Nov. 18, 1784:--'It was impossible for me to take the King's pleasure on the suggestion I presumed to move. I am an untoward solicitor.' Whether he consulted Pitt cannot be known. Mr. Croker notices a curious obliteration in this letter. The Chancellor had written:--'It would have suited the purpose better, if nobody had heard of it, except Dr. Johnson, you and J. Boswell.' _Boswell_ has been erased--'artfully' too, says--Mr. Croker-so that 'the sentence appears to run, "except Dr. Johnson, you, and I."' Mr. Croker, with his usual suspiciousness, suspects 'an uncandid trick.' But it is very likely that Thurlow himself made the obliteration, regardless of grammar. He might easily have thought that it would have been better still had Boswell not been in the secret.

[1083] See _ante_, iii. 176.

[1084] On June 11 Boswell and Johnson were together (_ante_, p. 293). The date perhaps should be July 11. The letter that follows next is dated July 12.

[1085] 'Even in our flight from vice some virtue lies.' FRANCIS. Horace, i. _Epistles_, I. 41.

[1086] See vol. ii. p. 258. BOSWELL.

[1087] Mrs. Johnson died in 1752. See _ante_, i. 241, note 2.

[1088] See Appendix.

[1089] Printed in his _Works_ [i. 150]. BOSWELL. See _ante_, i. 241, note 2.

[1090] He wrote to Mr. Ryland on the same day:--'Be pleased to let the whole be done with privacy that I may elude the vigilance of the papers.' _Notes and Queries_, 5th S. vii. 381.

[1091] Boileau, _Art Poétique_, chant iv.

[1092] This is probably an errour either of the transcript or the press. _Removes_ seems to be the word intended. MALONE.

[1093] See _ante_, i. 332, and _post_ p. 360.

[1094] See _ante_, p. 267.

[1095] I have heard Dr. Johnson protest that he never had quite as much as he wished of wall-fruit, except once in his life.' Piozzi's _Anec_. p. 103.

[1096] At the Essex Head, Essex-street. BOSWELL.

[1097] Juvenal, _Satires_, x. 8:--

'Fate wings with every wish the afflictive dart.'

_Vanity of Human Wishes_, l. 15.

[1098] Mr. Allen, the printer. BOSWELL. See _ante_, iii. 141, 269.

[1099] It was on this day that he wrote the prayer given below (p. 370) in which is found that striking line--'this world where much is to be done and little to be known.'

[1100] His letter to Dr. Heberden (Croker's _Boswell_, p. 789) shews that he had gone with Dr. Brocklesby to the last Academy dinner, when, as he boasted, 'he went up all the stairs to the pictures without stopping to rest or to breathe.' _Ante_, p. 270, note 2.

[1101]

Quid te exempta _levat_ spinis de pluribus una?
'Pluck out one thorn to mitigate thy pain,
What boots it while so many more remain?'

FRANCIS. Horace, 2 _Epistles_, ii. 212.

[1102] See _ante_, iii. 4, note 2.

[1103] Sir Joshua's physician. He is mentioned by Goldsmith in his verses to the Miss Hornecks. Forster's _Goldsmith_, ii. 149.

[1104] How much balloons filled people's minds at this time is shewn by such entries as the following in Windham's _Diary_:-'Feb 7, 1784. Did not rise till past nine; from that time till eleven, did little more than indulge in idle reveries about balloons.' p. 3. 'July 20. The greater part of the time, till now, one o'clock, spent in foolish reveries about balloons.' p. 12. Horace Walpole wrote on Sept. 30 (_Letters_, viii. 505):--'I cannot fill my paper, as the newspapers do, with air-balloons; which though ranked with the invention of navigation, appear to me as childish as the flying kites of school-boys.' 'Do not write about the balloon,' wrote Johnson to Reynolds (_post_, p. 368), 'whatever else you may think proper to say.' In the beginning of the year he had written:--'It is very seriously true that a subscription of £800 has been raised for the wire and workmanship of iron wings.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 345.

[1105] It is remarkable that so good a Latin scholar as Johnson, should have been so inattentive to the metre, as by mistake to have written _stellas_ instead of _ignes_. BOSWELL.

[1106]

'Micat inter omnes
Julium sidus, velut inter ignes Luna minores.'
'And like the Moon, the feebler fires among,
Conspicuous shines the Julian star.'

FRANCIS. Horace, _Odes_, i. 12. 46.

[1107] See _ante_, iii. 209.

[1108]

'The little blood that creeps within his veins
Is but just warmed in a hot fever's pains.'

DRYDEN. Juvenal, _Satires_, x. 217.

[1109] Lunardi had made, on Sept. 15, the first balloon ascent in England. _Gent. Mag_. 1784, p. 711. Johnson wrote to Mr. Ryland on Sept. 18:--'I had this day in three letters three histories of the Flying Man in the great Balloon.' He adds:--'I live in dismal solitude.' _Notes and Queries_, 5th S. vii. 381.

[1110] 'Sept. 27, 1784. Went to see Blanchard's balloon. Met Burke and D. Burke; walked with them to Pantheon to see Lunardi's. Sept. 29. About nine came to Brookes's, where I heard that the balloon had been burnt about four o'clock.' Windham's _Diary_, p. 24.

[1111] His love of London continually appears. In a letter from him to Mrs. Smart, wife of his friend the Poet, which is published in a well-written life of him, prefixed to an edition of his Poems, in 1791, there is the following sentence:-'To one that has passed so many years in the pleasures and opulence of London, there are few places that can give much delight.'

Once, upon reading that line in the curious epitaph quoted in _The Spectator;_

'Born in New-England, did in London die;'

he laughed and said, 'I do not wonder at this. It would have been strange, if born in London, he had died in New-England.' BOSWELL. Mrs. Smart was in Dublin when Johnson wrote to her. After the passage quoted by Boswell he continued:--'I think, Madam, you may look upon your expedition as a proper preparative to the voyage which we have often talked of. Dublin, though a place much worse than London, is not so bad as Iceland.' Smart's _Poems_, i. xxi. For Iceland see _ante_, i. 242. The epitaph, quoted in _The Spectator_, No. 518, begins--

Here Thomas Sapper lies interred. Ah why!
Born in New-England, did in London die.'

[1112] _St. Mark_, v. 34.

[1113] There is no record of this in the _Gent. Mag_. Among the 149 persons who that summer had been sentenced to death (_ante_, p. 328) who would notice these two?

[1114] See _ante_, p. 356, note 1

[1115] Johnson wrote for him a Dedication of his _Tasso_ in 1763. _Ante_, i. 383.

[1116] There was no information for which Dr. Johnson was less grateful that than for that which concerned the weather. It was in allusion to his impatience with those who were reduced to keep conversation alive by observations on the weather, that he applied the old proverb to himself. If any one of his intimate acquaintance told him it was hot or cold, wet or dry, windy or calm, he would stop them, by saying, 'Poh! poh! you are telling us that of which none but men in a mine or a dungeon can be ignorant. Let us bear with patience, or enjoy in quiet, elementary changes, whether for the better or the worse, as they are never secrets.' BURNEY. In _The Idler_, No. II, Johnson shews that 'an Englishman's notice of the weather is the natural consequence of changeable skies and uncertain seasons... In our island every man goes to sleep unable to guess whether he shall behold in the morning a bright or cloudy atmosphere, whether his rest shall be lulled by a shower, or broken by a tempest. We therefore rejoice mutually at good weather, as at an escape from something that we feared; and mutually complain of bad, as of the loss of something that we hoped.' See _ante_, i. 332, and iv. 353.

[1117] His _Account of the Musical Performances in Commemoration of Handel_. See _ante_, p. 283.

[1118] The celebrated Miss Fanny Burney. BOSWELL.

[1119] Dr. Burney's letter must have been franked; otherwise there would have been no frugality, for each enclosure was charged as a separate letter.

[1120] He does not know, that is to say, what people of his acquaintance were in town, privileged to receive letters post free; such as members of either House of Parliament.

[1121] _Consolation_ is clearly a blunder, Malone's conjecture _mortification_ seems absurd.

[1122] See _ante_, iii. 48, and iv. 177.

[1123] Windham visited him at Ashbourne in the end of August, after the former of these letters was written. See _ante_, p. 356.

[1124] This may refer, as Mr. Croker says, to Hamilton's generous offer, mentioned _ante_, p. 244. Yet Johnson, with his accurate mind, was not likely to assign to the spring an event of the previous November.

[1125] Johnson refers to Pope's lines on Walpole:--

'Seen him I have but in his _happier hour_
Of social pleasure, ill-exchanged for power.'

_Satires. Epilogue_, i. 29.

[1126] Son of the late Peter Paradise, Esq. his Britannick Majesty's Consul at Salonica, in Macedonia, by his lady, a native of that country. He studied at Oxford, and has been honoured by that University with the degree of LL.D. He is distinguished not only by his learning and talents, but by an amiable disposition, gentleness of manners, and a very general acquaintance with well-informed and accomplished persons of almost all nations. BOSWELL.

[1127] Bookseller to his Majesty. BOSWELL.

[1128] Mr. Cruikshank attended him as a surgeon the year before. _Ante_, p. 239.

[1129]Allan Ramsay, Esq. painter to his Majesty, who died Aug. 10, 1784, in the 71st year of his age, much regretted by his friends. BOSWELL. See _ante_, p. 260.

[1130] Northcote (_Life of Reynolds_, ii. 187) says that Johnson 'most probably refers to Sir Joshua's becoming painter to the King. 'I know,' he continues, 'that Sir Joshua expected the appointment would be offered to him on the death of Ramsay, and expressed his disapprobation with regard to soliciting for it; but he was informed that it was a necessary point of etiquette, with which at last he complied.' His 'furious purposes' should seem to have been his intention to resign the Presidency of the Academy, on finding that the place was not at once given him, and in the knowledge that in the Academy there was a party against him. Taylor's _Reynolds_, ii. 448.

[1131] See _ante_, p. 348.

[1132] The Chancellor had not, it should seem, asked the King. See _ante_, p. 350, note.

[1133] The Duke of Devonshire has kindly given me the following explanation of this term:--'It was formerly the custom at some (I believe several) of the large country-houses to have dinners at which any of the neighbouring gentry and clergy might present themselves as guests without invitation. The custom had been discontinued at Chatsworth before my recollection, and so far as I am aware is now only kept-up at Wentworth, Lord Fitzwilliam's house in Yorkshire, where a few public dinners are still given annually. I believe, however, that all persons intending to be present on such occasions are now expected to give notice some days previously. Public dinners were also given formerly by the Archbishop of Canterbury, and if I am not mistaken also by the Archbishop of York. I have myself been present at a public dinner at Lambeth Palace within the last fifty years or thereabouts, and I have been at one or more such dinners at Wentworth.' Since receiving this explanation I have read the following in the second part of the _Greville Memoirs_, i. 99:--'June 1, 1838. I dined yesterday at Lambeth, at the Archbishop's public dinner, the handsomest entertainment I ever saw. There were nearly a hundred people present, all full-dressed or in uniform. Nothing can be more dignified and splendid than the whole arrangement.'

[1134] Six weeks later he was willing to hear even of balloons, so long as he got a letter. 'You,' he wrote to Mr. Sastres, 'may always have something to tell: you live among the various orders of mankind, and may make a letter from the exploits, sometimes of the philosopher, and sometimes of the pickpocket. You see some balloons succeed and some miscarry, and a thousand strange and a thousand foolish things.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 412.

[1135] See _ante_, p. 349, note.

[1136] 'He alludes probably to the place of King's Painter; which, since Burke's reforming the King's household expenses, had been reduced from £200 to £50 per annum.' Northcote's _Reynolds_, ii. 188. The place was more profitable than Johnson thought. 'It was worth having from the harvest it brought in by the multiplication of the faces of King and Queen as presents for ambassadors and potentates.' This is shewn by the following note in Sir Joshua's price-book:--'Nov. 28, 1789, remain in the Academy five Kings, four Queens; in the house two Kings and one Queen.' Taylor's _Reynolds_, ii. 449.

[1137] Mr. Nichols published in 1782 _Anecdotes of William Bowyer, Printer_. In 1812-15 he brought out this work, recast and enlarged, under the title of _Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century_. See _ante_, p. 161.

[1138] In the original (which is in the British Museum) not _hints_ but _names_.

[1139] On Nov. 4, he wrote to Mr. Ryland:--'I have just received a letter in which you tell me that you love to hear from me, and I value such a declaration too much to neglect it. To have a friend, and a friend like you, may be numbered amongst the first felicities of life; at a time when weakness either of body or mind loses the pride and the confidence of self-sufficiency, and looks round for that help which perhaps human kindness cannot give, and which we yet are willing to expect from one another. I am at this time very much dejected.... I am now preparing myself for my return, and do not despair of some more monthly meetings [_post_, Appendix C]. To hear that dear Payne is better gives me great delight. I saw the draught of the stone [over Mrs. Johnson's grave, _ante_, p. 351]. Shall I ever be able to bear the sight of this stone? In your company I hope I shall.' Mr. Morrison's _Autographs_, vol. ii.

[1140] To him as a writer might be generally applied what he said of Rochester:--'His pieces are commonly short, such as one fit of resolution would produce.' _Works_, vii. 159.

[1141] _Odes_, iv.7. _Works_, i. 137.

[1142] _Against inqitisitive and perplexing thoughts_. 'O LORD, my Maker and Protector, who hast graciously sent me into this world to work out my salvation, enable me to drive from me all such unquiet and perplexing thoughts as may mislead or hinder me in the practice of those duties which Thou hast required. When I behold the works of thy hands, and consider the course of thy providence, give me grace always to remember that thy thoughts are not my thoughts, nor thy ways my ways. And while it shall please Thee to continue me in this world, where much is to be done, and little to be known, teach me by thy Holy Spirit, to withdraw my mind from unprofitable and dangerous enquiries, from difficulties vainly curious, and doubts impossible to be solved. Let me rejoice in the light which Thou hast imparted, let me serve Thee with active zeal and humble confidence, and wait with patient expectation for the time in which the soul which Thou receivest shall be satisfied with knowledge. Grant this, O LORD, for JESUS CHRIST'S sake. Amen.' BOSWELL. _Pr. and Med._ p. 219.

[1143] _Life of Johnson_, p. 599.

[1144] Porson with admirable humour satirised Hawkins for his attack on Barber. _Gent. Mag._ 1787, p. 752, and _Porson Tracts_, p. 358. Baretti in his _Tolondron_, p. 149, says that 'Barber from his earliest youth served Johnson with the greatest affection and disinterestedness.'

[1145] Vol. ii. p. 30. BOSWELL.

[1146] I shall add one instance only to those which I have thought it incumbent on me to point out. Talking of Mr. Garrick's having signified his willingness to let Johnson have the loan of any of his books to assist him in his edition of Shakspeare [_ante_, ii. 192]; Sir John says, (p. 444,) 'Mr. Garrick knew not what risque he ran by this offer. Johnson had so strange a forgetfulness of obligations of this sort, that few who lent him books ever saw them again.' This surely conveys a most unfavourable insinuation, and has been so understood. Sir John mentions the single case of a curious edition of Politian [_ante_, i. 90], which he tells us, 'appeared to belong to Pembroke College, and which, probably, had been considered by Johnson as his own, for upwards of fifty years.' Would it not be fairer to consider this as an inadvertence, and draw no general inference? The truth is, that Johnson was so attentive, that in one of his manuscripts in my possession, he has marked in two columns, books borrowed, and books lent.

In Sir John Hawkins's compilation, there are, however, some passages concerning Johnson which have unquestionable merit. One of them I shall transcribe, in justice to a writer whom I have had too much occasion to censure, and to shew my fairness as the biographer of my illustrious friend: 'There was wanting in his conduct and behaviour, that dignity which results from a regular and orderly course of action, and by an irresistible power commands esteem. He could not be said to be a stayed man, nor so to have adjusted in his mind the balance of reason and passion, as to give occasion to say what may be observed of some men, that all they do is just, fit, and right.' [Hawkins's _Johnson_, p. 409.] Yet a judicious friend well suggests, 'It might, however, have been added, that such men are often merely just, and rigidly correct, while their hearts are cold and unfeeling; and that Johnson's virtues were of a much higher tone than those of the _stayed, orderly man_, here described.' BOSWELL.

[1147] 'Lich, a dead carcase; whence Lichfield, the field of the dead, a city in Staffordshire, so named from martyred Christians. _Salve magna parens.'_ It is curious that in the Abridgment of the _Dictionary_ he struck out this salutation, though he left the rest of the article. _Salve magna parens_, (Hail, mighty parent) is from Virgil's _Georgics_, ii. 173. The Rev. T. Twining, when at Lichfield in 1797, says:--'I visited the famous large old willow-tree, which Johnson, they say, used to kiss when he came to Lichfield.' _Recreations and Studies of a Country Clergyman of the XVIII Century_, p. 227.

[1148] The following circumstance, mutually to the honour of Johnson, and the corporation of his native city, has been communicated to me by the Reverend Dr. Vyse, from the Town-Clerk:--'Mr. Simpson has now before him, a record of the respect and veneration which the Corporation of Lichfield, in the year 1767, had for the merits and learning of Dr. Johnson. His father built the corner-house in the Market-place, the two fronts of which, towards Market and Broad-market-street, stood upon waste land of the Corporation, under a forty years' lease, which was then expired. On the 15th of August, 1767, at a common-hall of the bailiffs and citizens, it was ordered (and that without any solicitation,) that a lease should be granted to Samuel Johnson, Doctor of Laws, of the encroachments at his house, for the term of ninety-nine years, at the old rent, which was five shillings. Of which, as Town-Clerk, Mr. Simpson had the honour and pleasure of informing him, and that he was desired to accept it, without paying any fine on the occasion, which lease was afterwards granted, and the Doctor died possessed of this property.' BOSWELL.

[1149] See vol. i. p. 37. BOSWELL.

[1150] According to Miss Seward, who was Mr. White's cousin, 'Johnson once called him "the rising strength of Lichfield."' Seward's _Letters_, i. 335.

[1151] The Rev. R. Warner, who visited Lichfield in 1801, gives in his _Tour through the Northern Counties_, i. 105, a fuller account. He is clearly wrong in the date of its occurrence, and in one other matter, yet his story may in the main be true. He says that Johnson's friends at Lichfield missed him one morning; the servants said that he had set off at a very early hour, whither they knew not. Just before supper he returned. He informed his hostess of his breach of filial duty, which had happened just fifty years before on that very day. 'To do away the sin of this disobedience, I this day went,' he said, 'in a chaise to--, and going into the market at the time of high business uncovered my head, and stood with it bare an hour, before the stall which my father had formerly used, exposed to the sneers of the standers-by, and the inclemency of the weather.' This penance may recall Dante's lines,--

'Quando vivea più glorioso, disse,
Liberamente nel campo di Siena,
Ogni vergogna deposta, s'affisse.'
'"When at his glory's topmost height," said he,
"Respect of dignity all cast aside,
Freely he fix'd him on Sienna's plain."'

CARY. Dante, _Purgatory_. Cant. xi. l. 133.

[1152]

'How instinct varies in the grovelling swine,
Compared, half-reasoning elephant, with thine.'

Pope, _Essay on Man_, i. 221.

[1153] See _ante_, iii. 153, 296.

[1154] Mr. Burke suggested to me as applicable to Johnson, what Cicero, in his CATO MAJOR, says of _Appius:--'Intentum enim animum tanquam arcum habebat, nec languescens succumbebat senectuti_;' repeating, at the same time, the following noble words in the same passage:--_'Ita enim senectus honesta est, si se ipsa defendit, si jus suum retinet, si nemini emancipata est, si usque ad extremum vitae spiritum vindicet jus suum_.' BOSWELL. The last line runs in the original:-'si usque ad ultimum spiritum dominatur in suos.' _Cato Major_, xi. 38.

[1155]

'_atrocem_ animum Catonis.'
'Cato--
Of spirit unsubdued.'

FRANCIS. Horace, 2 _Odes_, i. 24.

[1156] Yet Baretti, who knew Johnson well, in a MS. note on _Piozzi Letters_, i.315, says:--'If ever Johnson took any delight in anything it was to converse with some old acquaintance. New people he never loved to be in company with, except ladies, when disposed to caress and flatter him.'

[1157] Johnson, thirty-four years earlier, wrote:--'I think there is some reason for questioning whether the body and mind are not so proportioned that the one can bear all that can be inflicted on the other; whether virtue cannot stand its ground as long as life, and whether a soul well principled will not be separated sooner than subdued.' _The Rambler_, No. 32. He wrote to Mrs. Thrale on Aug. 14, 1780:--'But what if I am seventy-two; I remember Sulpitius says of Saint Martin (now that's above your reading), _Est animus victor annorum, et senectuti cedere nescius_. Match me that among your young folks.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 177. On Sept. 2, 1784, he wrote to Mr. Sastres the Italian master:--'I have hope of standing the English winter, and of seeing you, and reading _Petrarch_ at Bolt-court.' _Ib_. p. 407.

[1158] _Life of Johnson_, p. 7.