Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) - Boswell
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[226] January, 1791. BOSWELL. Hastings's trial had been dragging on for
more than three years when _The Life of Johnson_ was published. It began
in 1788, and ended in 1795.
[227] _Gent. Mag_. for 1785, p. 412.
[228] Afterwards Sir Robert Chambers, one of his Majesty's Judges in
India. BOSWELL. See _ante_, i.274.
[229] 'He conceived that the cultivation of Persian literature might
with advantage be made a part of the liberal education of an English
gentleman; and he drew up a plan with that view. It is said that the
University of Oxford, in which Oriental learning had never, since the
revival of letters, been wholly neglected, was to be the seat of the
institution which he contemplated.' Macaulay's _Essays_, ed. 1843,
iii. 338.
[230] Lord North's. Feeble though it was, it lasted eight years longer.
[231] Jones's _Persian Grammar_. Boswell. It was published in 1771.
[232] _Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland_. BOSWELL.
[233] See _ante_, ii. 296.
[234] Macaulay wrote of Hastings's answer to this letter:--'It is a
remarkable circumstance that one of the letters of Hastings to Dr.
Johnson bears date a very few hours after the death of Nuncomar. While
the whole settlement was in commotion, while a mighty and ancient
priesthood were weeping over the remains of their chief, the conqueror
in that deadly grapple sat down, with characteristic self-possession, to
write about the _Tour to the Hebrides_, Jones's _Persian Grammar_, and
the history, traditions, arts, and natural productions of India.'
Macaulay's _Essays_, ed. 1843, iii.376.
[235] Johnson wrote the Dedication, _Ante_, i.383.
[236] See _ante_, ii.82, note 2.
[237] _Copy_ is _manuscript for printing_.
[238] Published by Kearsley, with this well-chosen motto:--'From his
cradle He was a SCHOLAR, and a ripe and good one: And to add greater
honours to his age Than man could give him, he died fearing Heaven.'
SHAKSPEARE. BOSWELL. This quotation is a patched up one from _Henry
VIII_, act iv. sc.2. The quotation in the text is found on p. 89 of this
_Life of Johnson_.
[239] Mr. Thrale had removed, that is to say, from his winter residence
in the Borough. Mrs. Piozzi has written opposite this passage in her
copy of Boswell:--'Spiteful again! He went by direction of his
physicians where they could easiest attend to him.' Hayward's _Piozzi_,
i. 91. There was, perhaps, a good deal of truth in Boswell's
supposition, for in 1779 Johnson had told her that he saw 'with
indignation her despicable dread of living in the Borough.' _Piozzi
Letters_, ii.92. Johnson had a room in the new house. 'Think,' wrote
Hannah More, 'of Johnson's having apartments in Grosvenor-square! but he
says it is not half so convenient as Bolt-court.' H. More's
_Memoirs_, i.2O7.
[240] See _ante_, iii. 250.
[241] Shakspeare makes Hamlet thus describe his father:--
'See what a grace was seated on this brow:
Hyperion's curls, the front of Jove himself,
An eye like Mars, to threaten and command;
A station like the herald, Mercury,
New-lighted on a heaven-kissing hill;
A combination, and a form, indeed,
Where every god did seem to set his seal,
To give the world assurance of a man.!
[Act iii. sc. 4.]
Milton thus pourtrays our first parent, Adam:--
'His fair large front and eye sublime declar'd
Absolute rule; and hyacinthin locks
Round from his parted forelock manly hung
Clus'tring, but not beneath his shoulders broad.'
[_P.L._ iv. 300.] BOSWELL.
[242] 'Grattan's Uncle, Dean Marlay [afterwards Bishop of Waterford],
had a good deal of the humour of Swift. Once, when the footman was out
of the way, he ordered the coachman to fetch some water from the well.
To this the man objected, that _his_ business was to drive, not to run
on errands. "Well, then," said Marlay, "bring out the coach and four,
set the pitcher inside, and drive to the well;"--a service which was
several times repeated, to the great amusement of the village.' Rogers's
_Table-Talk_, p.176.
[243] See _ante_, ii. 241, for Johnson's contempt of puns.
[244] 'He left not faction, but of that was left.' _Absalom and
Achitophel_, l. 568.
[245] Boswell wrote of Gibbon in 1779:--'He is an ugly, affected,
disgusting fellow, and poisons our Literary Club to me.' _Letters of
Boswell_, p.242. See _ante_, ii.443, note 1.
[246] _The schools_ in this sense means a University.
[247] See _ante_, ii.224.
[248] Up to the year 1770, controverted elections had been tried before
a Committee of the whole House. By the _Grenville Act_ which was passed
in that year they were tried by a select committee. _Parl. Hist._ xvi.
902. Johnson, in _The False Alarm_ (1770), describing the old method of
trial, says;--'These decisions have often been apparently partial, and
sometimes tyrannically oppressive.' _Works, vi. 169._ _In The Patriot_
(1774), he says:--'A disputed election is now tried with the same
scrupulousness and solemnity as any other title.' _Ib._ p.223. See
Boswell's _Hebrides_, Nov.10.
[249] Miss Burney describes a dinner at Mr. Thrale's, about this time,
at which she met Johnson, Boswell, and Dudley Long. Mme. D'Arblay's
_Diary_, ii. 14.
[250] See _ante_, ii.171, _post_, two paragraphs before April 10, 1783,
and May 15, 1784.
[251] Johnson wrote on May i, 1780:--'There was the Bishop of St. Asaph
who comes to every place.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 111. Hannah More, in
1782, describes an assembly at this Bishop's. 'Conceive to yourself 150
or 200 people met together dressed in the extremity of the fashion,
painted as red as Bacchanals...ten or a dozen card-tables crammed with
dowagers of quality, grave ecclesiastics and yellow admirals.'
_Memoirs_, i.242. He was elected a member of the Literary Club, 'with
the sincere approbation and eagerness of all present,' wrote Mr.
(afterwards Sir William) Jones; elected, too, on the same day on which
Lord Chancellor Camden was rejected (_ante_, iii. 311, note 2). Two or
three years later Sir William married the Bishop's daughter. _Life of
Sir W Jones_, pp.240, 279.
[252] 'Trust not to looks, nor credit outward show; The villain lurks
beneath the cassocked beau.' Churchill's _Poems_ (ed. 1766), ii.41.
[253] No. 2.
[254] See vol. i p. 378. BOSWELL.
[255] Northcote, according to Hazlitt, said of this character with some
truth, that 'it was like one of Kneller's portraits--it would do for
anybody.' Northcote's _Conversations_, p.86.
[256] See _post_, p.98.
[257] _London Chronicle_, May 2, 1769. This respectable man is there
mentioned to have died on the 3rd of April, that year, at Cofflect, the
seat of Thomas Veale, Esq., in his way to London. BOSWELL.
[258] Dr. Harte was the tutor of Mr. Eliot and of young Stanhope, Lord
Chesterfield's illegitimate son. 'My morning hopes,' wrote Chesterfield
to his son at Rome, 'are justly placed in Mr. Harte, and the masters he
will give you; my evening ones in the Roman ladies: pray be attentive to
both.' Chesterfield's _Letters_, ii.263. See _ante_, i.163, note 1,
ii.120, and _post_, June 27, 1784.
[259] Robertson's _Scotland_ is in the February list of books in the
_Gent. Mag_. for 1759; Harte's _Gustavus Adolphus_ and Hume's _England
under the House of Tudor_ in the March list. Perhaps it was from Hume's
competition that Harte suffered.
[260] _Essays on Husbandry_, 1764.
[261] See _ante_, iii. 381.
[262] 'Christmas Day, 1780. I shall not attempt to see Vestris till the
weather is milder, though it is the universal voice that he is the only
perfect being that has dropped from the clouds, within the memory of man
or woman...When the Parliament meets he is to be thanked by the
Speaker.' Walpole's _Letters_, vii. 480.
[263] Here Johnson uses his title of Doctor (_ante_, ii.332, note 1),
but perhaps he does so as quoting the paragraph in the newspaper.
[264] William, the first Viscount Grimston. BOSWELL. Swift thus
introduces him in his lines _On Poetry, A Rhapsody_:--
'When death had finished Blackmore's reign,
The leaden crown devolved to thee,
Great poet of the hollow tree.'
Mr. Nichols, in a note on this, says that Grimston 'wrote the play when
a boy, to be acted by his schoolfellows.' Swift's _Works_ (1803), xi.
297. Two editions were published apparently by Grimston himself, one
bearing his name but no date, and the other the date of 1705 but no
name. By 1705 Grimston was 22 years old--no longer a boy. The former
edition was published by Bernard Lintott at the Cross Keys,
Fleet-street, and the latter by the same bookseller at the Middle Temple
Gate. The grossness of a young man of birth at this period is shewn by
the Preface. The third edition with the elephant on the tight-rope was
published in 1736. There is another illustration in which an ass is
represented bearing a coronet. Grimston's name is not given here, but
there is a dedication 'To the Right Sensible the Lord Flame.' Three or
four notes are added, one of which is very gross. The election was for
St. Alban's, for which borough he was thrice returned.
[265] Dr. T. Campbell records (_Diary_, p. 69) that 'Boswell asked
Johnson if he had never been under the hands of a dancing master. "Aye,
and a dancing mistress too," says the Doctor; "but I own to you I never
took a lesson but one or two; my blind eyes showed me I could never make
a proficiency."'
[266] See vol. ii. p.286. BOSWELL.
[267] Miss Burney writes of him in Feb. 1779:--'He is a professed
minority man, and very active and zealous in the opposition. Men of such
different principles as Dr. Johnson and Sir Philip cannot have much
cordiality in their political debates; however, the very superior
abilities of the former, and the remarkable good breeding of the latter
have kept both upon good terms.' She describes a hot argument between
them, and continues:--'Dr. Johnson pursued him with unabating vigour and
dexterity, and at length, though he could not convince, he so entirely
baffled him, that Sir Philip was self-compelled to be quiet--which, with
a very good grace, he confessed. Dr. Johnson then recollecting himself,
and thinking, as he owned afterwards, that the dispute grew too serious,
with a skill all his own, suddenly and unexpectedly turned it to
burlesque.' D'Arblay's _Diary_, i. 192.
[268] See _post_, Jan. 20, 1782.
[269] See _ante_, ii.355.
[270] Here Johnson condescended to play upon the words _Long_ and
_short_. But little did he know that, owing to Mr. Long's reserve in his
presence, he was talking thus of a gentleman distinguised amongst his
acquaintance for acuteness of wit; one to whom I think the French
expression, '_Il petille d'esprit_,' is particularly He has gratified me
by mentioning that he heard Dr. Johnson say, 'Sir, if I were to lose
Boswell, it would be a limb amputated.' BOSWELL.
[271] William Weller Pepys, Esq., one of the Masters in the High Court
of Chancery, and well known in polite circles. My acquaintance with him
is not sufficient to enable me to speak of him from my own judgement.
But I know that both at Eton and Oxford he was the intimate friend of
the late Sir James Macdonald, the _Marcellus_ of Scotland [_ante_,
i.449], whose extraordinary talents, learning, and virtues, will ever be
remembered with admiration and regret. BOSWELL.
[272] See note, _ante_, p. 65, which describes an attack made by Johnson
on Pepys more than two months after this conversation.
[273] Johnson once said to Mrs. Thrale:--'Why, Madam, you often provoke
me to say severe things by unreasonable commendation. If you would not
call for my praise, I would not give you my censure; but it constantly
moves my indignation to be applied to, to speak well of a thing which I
think contemptible.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, i.132. See _ante_,
iii.225.
[274] 'Mrs. Thrale,' wrote Miss Burney in 1780, 'is a most dear
creature, but never restrains her tongue in anything, nor, indeed, any
of her feelings. She laughs, cries, scolds, sports, reasons, makes
fun--does everything she has an inclination to do, without any study of
prudence, or thought of blame; and, pure and artless as is this
character, it often draws both herself and others into scrapes, which a
little discretion would avoid.' _Ib_. i.386. Later on she writes:--'Mrs.
Thrale, with all her excellence, can give up no occasion of making
sport, however unseasonable or even painful... I knew she was not to be
safely trusted with anything she could turn into ridicule.' _Ib_.
ii.24 and 29.
[275] Perhaps Mr. Seward, who was constantly at the Thrales' (_ante_,
iii. 123).
[276] See _ante_, iii.228, 404.
[277] It was the seventh anniversary of Goldsmith's death.
[278] 'Mrs. Garrick and I,' wrote Hannah More (_Memoirs_, i. 208), 'were
invited to an assembly at Mrs. Thrale's. There was to be a fine concert,
and all the fine people were to be there. Just as my hair was dressed,
came a servant to forbid our coming, for that Mr. Thrale was dead.'
[279] _Pr. and Med._ p 191. BOSWELL. The rest of the entry should be
given:--'On Wednesday, 11, was buried my dear friend Thrale, who died on
Wednesday 4; and with him were buried many of my hopes and pleasures.
[On Sunday, 1st, the physician warned him against full meals, on Monday
I pressed him to observance of his rules, but without effect, and
Tuesday I was absent, but his wife pressed forbearance upon him again
unsuccessfully. At night I was called to him, and found him senseless in
strong convulsions. I staid in the room, except that I visited Mrs.
Thrale twice.] About five, I think, on Wednesday morning he expired; I
felt, &c. Farewell. May God that delighteth in mercy have had mercy on
thee. I had constantly prayed for him some time before his death. The
decease of him from whose friendship I had obtained many opportunities
of amusement, and to whom I turned my thoughts as to a refuge from
misfortunes, has left me heavy. But my business is with myself.' The
passage enclosed in brackets I have copied from the original MS. Mr.
Strahan, the editor, omitted it, no doubt from feelings of delicacy.
What a contrast in this to the widow who published a letter in which she
had written:--'I wish that you would put in a word of your own to Mr.
Thrale about eating less!' _Piozzi Letters_, ii.130. Baretti, in a note
on _Piozzi Letters_, ii.142, says that 'nobody ever had spirit enough to
tell Mr. Thrale that his fits were apoplectic; such is the blessing of
being rich that nobody dares to speak out.' In Johnson's _Works_ (1787),
xi.203, it is recorded that 'Johnson, who attended Thrale in his last
moments, said, "His servants would have waited upon him in this awful
period, and why not his friend?"'
[280] Johnson's letters to the widow show how much he felt Thrale's
death. 'April 5, 1781. I am not without my part of the calamity. No
death since that of my wife has ever oppressed me like this. April 7. My
part of the loss hangs upon me. I have lost a friend of boundless
kindness, at an age when it is very unlikely that I should find another.
April 9. Our sorrow has different effects; you are withdrawn into
solitude, and I am driven into company. I am afraid of thinking what I
have lost. I never had such a friend before. April 11. I feel myself
like a man beginning a new course of life. I had interwoven myself with
my dear friend.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 191-97. 'I have very often,'
wrote Miss Burney, in the following June, 'though I mention them not,
long and melancholy discourses with Dr. Johnson about our dear deceased
master, whom, indeed, he regrets incessantly.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_,
ii. 63. On his next birthday, he wrote:--'My first knowledge of Thrale
was in 1765. I enjoyed his favour for almost a fourth part of my life.'
_Pr. and Med._ p.191. One or two passages in Mrs. Thrale's Letters shew
her husband's affection for Johnson. On May 3, 1776, she writes:--'Mr.
Thrale says he shall not die in peace without seeing Rome, and I am sure
he will go nowhere that he can help without you.' _Piozzi Letters_,
i.317. A few days later, she speaks of 'our dear master, who cannot be
quiet without you for a week.' _Ib._ p.329. Johnson, in his fine epitaph
on Thrale (_Works_, i.153) broke through a rule which he himself had
laid down. In his _Essay on Epitaphs_ (_Ib._ v 263), he said:--'It is
improper to address the epitaph to the passenger [traveller], a custom
which an injudicious veneration for antiquity introduced again at the
revival of letters.' Yet in the monument in Streatham Church, we find
the same _Abi viator_ which he had censured in an epitaph on Henry IV
of France.
[281] Johnson's letters to Mrs. Thrale shew that he had long been well
acquainted with the state of her husband's business. In the year 1772,
Mr. Thrale was in money difficulties. Johnson writes to her almost as if
he were a partner in the business. 'The first consequence of our late
trouble ought to be an endeavour to brew at a cheaper rate...Unless this
can be done, nothing can help us; and if this be done, we shall not want
help.' _Piozzi Letters_, i.57. He urges economy in the household, and
continues:--'But the fury of housewifery will soon subside; and little
effect will be produced, but by methodical attention and even
frugality.' _Ib._ p.64. In another letter he writes:--'This year will
undoubtedly be an year of struggle and difficulty; but I doubt not of
getting through it; and the difficulty will grow yearly less and less.
Supposing that our former mode of life kept us on the level, we shall,
by the present contraction of expense, gain upon fortune a thousand a
year, even though no improvements can be made in the conduct of the
trade.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 66. Four years later, he writes:--'To-day I
went to look into my places at the Borough. I called on Mr. Perkins in
the counting-house. He crows and triumphs, as we go on we shall double
our business.' _Ib._ p. 333. When the executors first met, he
wrote:--'We met to-day, and were told of mountainous difficulties, till
I was provoked to tell them, that if there were really so much to do and
suffer, there would be no executors in the world. Do not suffer yourself
to be terrified.' _Ib._ ii. 197. Boswell says (_ante_, ii. 44l):--'I
often had occasion to remark, Johnson loved business, loved to have his
wisdom actually operate on real life.' When Boswell had purchased a
farm, 'Johnson,' he writes (_ante_, iii. 207), 'made several
calculations of the expense and profit; for he delighted in exercising
his mind on the science of numbers.' The letter (_ante_, ii. 424)
about the book-trade 'exhibits,' to use Boswell's words, 'his
extraordinary precision and acuteness.' Boswell wrote to Temple:--'Dr.
Taylor has begged of Dr. Johnson to come to London, to assist him in
some interesting business; and Johnson loves much to be so consulted,
and so comes up.' _Ante_, iii. 51, note 3.
[282] Johnson, as soon as the will was read, wrote to Mrs. Thrale:--'You
have, L500 for your immediate expenses, and, L2000 a year, with both the
houses and all the goods.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 192. Beattie wrote on
June 1:--'Everybody says Mr. Thrale should have left Johnson L200 a
year; which, from a fortune like his, would have been a very
inconsiderable deduction.' Beattie's _Life_, ed. 1824, p. 290.
[283] Miss Burney thus writes of the day of the sale:--'Mrs. Thrale went
early to town, to meet all the executors, and Mr. Barclay, the Quaker,
who was the bidder. She was in great agitation of mind, and told me if
all went well she would wave a white handkerchief out of the
coach-window. Four o'clock came and dinner was ready, and no Mrs.
Thrale. Queeny and I went out upon the lawn, where we sauntered in eager
expectation, till near six, and then the coach appeared in sight, and a
white handkerchief was waved from it.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii. 34.
The brewery was sold for L135,000. See _post_, June 16, 1781.
[284] See _post_, paragraph before June 22, 1784.
[285] Baretti, in a MS. note on _Piozzi Letters_, i. 369, says that 'the
two last years of Thrale's life his brewery brought him L30,000 a year
neat profit.'
[286] In the fourth edition of his _Dictionary_, published in 1773,
Johnson introduced a second definition of _patriot_:--'It is sometimes
used for a factious disturber of the government.' Gibbon (_Misc. Works_,
ii. 77) wrote on Feb. 21, 1772:--'Charles Fox is commenced patriot, and
is already attempting to pronounce the words, _country_, _liberty_,
_corruption_, &c.; with what success time will discover.' Forty years
before Johnson begged not to meet patriots, Sir Robert Walpole said:--'A
patriot, Sir! why patriots spring up like mushrooms. I could raise fifty
of them within the four-and-twenty hours. I have raised many of them in
one night. It is but refusing to gratify an unreasonable or an insolent
demand, and up starts a patriot. I have never been afraid of making
patriots; but I disdain and despise all their efforts.' Coxe's
_Walpole_, i. 659. See _ante_, ii. 348, and iii. 66.
[287] He was tried on Feb. 5 and 6, 1781. _Ann. Reg._ xxiv. 217.
[288] Hannah More (_Memoirs_, i. 210) records a dinner on a Tuesday in
this year. (Like Mrs. Thrale and Miss Burney, she cared nothing for
dates.) It was in the week after Thrale's death. It must have been the
dinner here mentioned by Boswell; for it was at a Bishop's (Shipley of
St. Asaph), and Sir Joshua and Boswell were among the guests. Why
Boswell recorded none of Johnson's conversation may be guessed from what
she tells. 'I was heartily disgusted,' she says, 'with Mr. Boswell, who
came up stairs after dinner much disordered with wine.' (See _post_, p.
109). The following morning Johnson called on her. 'He reproved me,' she
writes, 'with pretended sharpness for reading _Les Pensees de Pascal_,
alleging that as a good Protestant I ought to abstain from books written
by Catholics. I was beginning to stand upon my defence, when he took me
with both hands, and with a tear running down his cheeks, "Child," said
he, with the most affecting earnestness, "I am heartily glad that you
read pious books, by whomsoever they may be written.'"
[289] On Good-Friday, in 1778, Johnson recorded:--'It has happened this
week, as it never happened in Passion-week before, that I have never
dined at home, and I have therefore neither practised abstinence nor
peculiar devotion' _Pr. and Med._ p. 163.
[290] No. 7.
[291] See _ante_, iii. 302.
[292] Richard Berenger, Esq., many years Gentleman of the Horse, and
first Equerry to his present Majesty. MALONE. According to Mrs. Piozzi
(_Anec._ p. 156), he was Johnson's 'standard of true elegance.'
[293] See _ante_, iii. 186.
[294] Johnson (_Works_, vii. 449) thus describes Addison's 'familiar
day,' on the authority of Pope:--'He studied all morning; then dined at
a tavern; and went afterwards to Button's [coffee-house]. From the
coffee-house he went again to a tavern, where he often sat late, and
drank too much wine.' Spence (_Anec._ p. 286) adds, on the authority of
Pope, that 'Addison passed each day alike, and much in the manner that
Dryden did. Dryden employed his mornings in writing; dined _en famille_;
and then went to Wills's; only he came home earlier a'nights'
[295] Mr. Foss says of Blackstone:--'Ere he had been long on the bench
he experienced the bad effects of the studious habits in which he had
injudiciously indulged in his early life, and of his neglect to take the
necessary amount of exercise, to which he was specially averse.' He died
at the age of 56. Foss's _Judges_, viii. 250. He suffered greatly from
his corpulence. His portrait in the Bodleian shews that he was a very
fat man. Malone says that Scott (afterwards Lord Stowell) wrote to
Blackstone's family to apologise for Boswell's anecdote. Prior's
_Malone_, p. 415. Scott would not have thought any the worse of
Blackstone for his bottle of port; both he and his brother, the
Chancellor, took a great deal of it. 'Lord Eldon liked plain port; the
stronger the better.' Twiss's _Eldon_, iii. 486. Some one asked him
whether Lord Stowell took much exercise. 'None,' he said, 'but the
exercise of eating and drinking.' _Ib._ p. 302. Yet both men got through
a vast deal of hard work, and died, Eldon at the age of 86, and
Stowell of 90.
[296] See this explained, pp. 52, 53 of this volume. BOSWELL.
[297] See _ante_, ii. 7.
[298] William Scott was a tutor of University College at the age of
nineteen. He held the office for ten years--to 1775. He wrote to his
father in 1772 about his younger brother John (afterwards Lord Eldon),
who had just made a run-away match:--'The business in which I am engaged
is so extremely disagreeable in itself, and so destructive to health (if
carried on with such success as can render it at all considerable in
point of profit) that I do not wonder at his unwillingness to succeed me
in it.' Twiss's _Eldon_, i. 47, 74.
[299] The account of her marriage given By John Wesley in a letter
to his brother-in-law, Mr. Hall, is curious. He wrote on Dec. 22,
1747:--'More than twelve years ago you told me God had revealed it to you
that you should marry my youngest sister ... You asked and gained her
consent... In a few days you had a counter-revelation, that you was not
to marry her, but her sister. This last error was far worse than the
first. But you was not quite above conviction. So, in spite of her poor
astonished parents, of her brothers, of all your vows and promises, you
shortly after jilted the younger and married the elder sister.' Wesley's
_Journal_, ii. 39. Mrs. Hall suffered greatly for marrying a wretch who
had so cruelly treated her own sister, Southey's _Wesley_, i. 369.