Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) - Boswell
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[353] See _ante_, ii. 436, and iv. 88, note I.
[354] On May 22 Horace Walpole wrote (_Letters_, viii. 44):--'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. "Had I seen Dr. Johnson's _Lives of the Poets_?" I
said slightly, "No, not yet;" and so overlaid his whole impertinence.'
[355] See _ante_, iii. 1.
[356] See _ante_, ii. 47, note 2; 352, note I; and iii. 376, for
explanations of like instances of Boswell's neglect.
[357] See _ante_, i. 298, note 4.
[358] 'He owned he sometimes talked for victory.' Boswell's _Hebrides_,
opening pages.
[359] The late Right Hon. William Gerard Hamilton. MALONE.
[360] Dr. Johnson, being told of a man who was thankful for being
introduced to him, 'as he had been convinced in a long dispute that an
opinion which he had embraced as a settled truth was no better than a
vulgar error, "Nay," said he, "do not let him be thankful, for he was
right, and I was wrong." Like his Uncle Andrew in the ring at
Smithfield, Johnson, in a circle of disputants, was determined neither
to be thrown nor conquered.' Murphy's _Johnson_, p. 139. Johnson, in
_The Adventurer_, No. 85, seems to describe his own talk. He writes:--'
While the various opportunities of conversation invite us to try every
mode of argument, and every art of recommending our sentiments, we are
frequently betrayed to the use of such as are not in themselves strictly
defensible; a man heated in talk, and eager of victory, takes advantage
of the mistakes or ignorance of his adversary, lays hold of concessions
to which he knows he has no right, and urges proofs likely to prevail on
his opponent, though he knows himself that they have no force.' J. S.
Mill gives somewhat the same account of his own father. 'I am inclined
to think,' he writes, 'that he did injustice to his own opinions by the
unconscious exaggerations of an intellect emphatically polemical; and
that when thinking without an adversary in view, he was willing to make
room for a great portion of the truths he seemed to deny.' Mill's
_Autobiography_, p. 201. See also _ante_, ii. 100, 450, in. 23, 277,
331; and _post_, May 18, 1784, and Steevens's account of Johnson just
before June 22, 1784.
[361] Thomas Shaw, D.D., author of _Travels to Barbary and the Levant_.
[362] See ante, iii. 314.
[363] The friend very likely was Boswell himself. He was one of 'these
_tanti_ men.' 'I told Paoli that in the very heat of youth I felt the
_nom est tanti_, the _omnia vanitas_ of one who has exhausted all the
sweets of his being, and is weary with dull repetition. I told him that
I had almost become for ever incapable of taking a part in active life.'
Boswell's _Corsica_, ed. 1879, p. 193.
[364] _Letters on the English Nation: By Batista Angeloni, a Jesuit, who
resided many years in London. Translated from the original Italian by
the Author of the Marriage Act. A Novel_. 2 vols. London [no printer's
name given], 1755. Shebbeare published besides six _Letters to the
People of England_ in the years 1755-7, for the last of which he was
sentenced to the pillory. _Ante_, iii. 315, note I. Horace Walpole
(_Letters_, iii. 74) described him in 1757 as 'a broken Jacobite
physician, who has threatened to write himself into a place or
the pillory.'
[365] I recollect a ludicrous paragraph in the newspapers, that the King
had pensioned both a _He_-bear and a _She_-bear. BOSWELL. See _ante_,
ii. 66, and _post_, April 28, 1783.
[366]
Witness, ye chosen train
Who breathe the sweets of his Saturnian reign;
Witness ye Hills, ye Johnsons, Scots, Shebbeares,
Hark to my call, for some of you have ears.'
_Heroic Epistle_. See _post_, under June 16, 1784.
[367] In this he was unlike the King, who, writes Horace Walpole,'
expecting only an attack on Chambers, bought it to tease, and began
reading it to, him; but, finding it more bitter on himself, flung it
down on the floor in a passion, and would read no more.' _Journal of the
Reign of George III_, i. 187.
[368] They were published in 1773 in a pamphlet of 16 pages, and, with
the good fortune that attends a muse in the peerage, reached a third
edition in the year. To this same earl the second edition of Byron's
_Hours of Idleness_ was 'dedicated by his obliged ward and affectionate
kinsman, the author.' In _English Bards and Scotch Reviewers_, he is
abused in the passage which begins:--
'No muse will cheer with renovating smile,
The paralytic puling of Carlisle.'
In a note Byron adds:--'The Earl of Carlisle has lately published an
eighteen-penny pamphlet on the state of the stage, and offers his plan
for building a new theatre. It is to be hoped his lordship will be
permitted to bring forward anything for the stage--except his own
tragedies.' In the third canto of _Childe Harold_ Byron makes amends. In
writing of the death of Lord Carlisle's youngest son at Waterloo,
he says:--
'Their praise is hymn'd by loftier harps than mine;
Yet one I would select from that proud throng,
Partly because they blend me with his line,
And partly that I did his Sire some wrong.'
For his lordship's tragedy see _post_, under Nov. 19, 1783.
[369] Men of rank and fortune, however, should be pretty well assured of
having a real claim to the approbation of the publick, as writers,
before they venture to stand forth. Dryden, in his preface to _All for
Love_, thus expresses himself:--
'Men of pleasant conversation (at least esteemed so) and endued with a
trifling kind of fancy, perhaps helped out by [with] a smattering of
Latin, are ambitious to distinguish themselves from the herd of
gentlemen, by their poetry:
_"Rarus enim ferme sensus communis in ilia
Fortuna,"----[Juvenal_, viii. 73.]
And is not this a wretched affectation, not to be contented with what
fortune has done for them, and sit down quietly with their estates, but
they must call their wits in question, and needlessly expose their
nakedness to publick view? Not considering that they are not to expect
the same approbation from sober men, which they have found from their
flatterers after the third bottle: If a little glittering in discourse
has passed them on us for witty men, where was the necessity of
undeceiving the world? Would a man who has an ill title to an estate,
but yet is in possession of it, would he bring it of his own accord to
be tried at Westminster? We who write, if we want the talents [talent],
yet have the excuse that we do it for a poor subsistence; but what can
be urged in their defence, who, not having the vocation of poverty to
scribble, out of mere wantonness take pains to make themselves
ridiculous? Horace was certainly in the right where he said, "That no
man is satisfied with his own condition." A poet is not pleased, because
he is not rich; and the rich are discontented because the poets will not
admit them of their number.' BOSWELL. Boswell, it should seem, had
followed Swift's advice:--
'Read all the prefaces of Dryden,
For these our critics much confide in;
Though merely writ at first for filling,
To raise the volume's price a shilling.'
Swift's _Works_, ed. 1803, xi. 293.
[370] See _ante_, i. 402.
[371] Wordsworth, it should seem, held with Johnson in this. When he
read the article in the _Edinburgh Review_ on Lord Byron's early poems,
he remarked that 'though Byron's verses were probably poor enough, yet
such an attack was abominable,--that a young nobleman, who took to
poetry, deserved to be encouraged, not ridiculed.' Rogers's
_Table-Talk_, p. 234, note.
[372] Dr. Barnard, formerly Dean of Derry. See _ante_, iii. 84.
[373] This gave me very great pleasure, for there had been once a pretty
smart altercation between Dr. Barnard and him, upon a question, whether
a man could improve himself after the age of forty-five; when Johnson in
a hasty humour, expressed himself in a manner not quite civil. Dr.
Barnard made it the subject of a copy of pleasant verses, in which he
supposed himself to learn different perfections from different men. They
concluded with delicate irony:--
'Johnson shall teach me how to place
In fairest light each borrow'd grace;
From him I'll learn to write;
Copy his clear familiar style,
And by the roughness of his file
Grow, like _himself, polite_.'
I know not whether Johnson ever saw the poem, but I had occasion to find
that as Dr. Barnard and he knew each other better, their mutual regard
increased. BOSWELL. See Appendix A.
[374] See _ante_, ii. 357, iii. 309, and _post_, March 23, 1783.
[375] 'Sir Joshua once asked Lord B---- to dine with Dr. Johnson and the
rest, but though a man of rank and also of good information, he seemed
as much alarmed at the idea as if you had tried to force him into one of
the cages at Exeter-Change.' Hazlitt's _Conversations of Northcote_,
p. 41.
[376] Yet when he came across them he met with much respect. At Alnwick
he was, he writes, 'treated with great civility by the Duke of
Northumberland.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 108. At Inverary, the Duke and
Duchess of Argyle shewed him great attention. Boswell's _Hebrides_, Oct.
25. In fact, all through his Scotch tour he was most politely welcomed
by 'the great.' At Chatsworth, he was 'honestly pressed to stay' by the
Duke and Duchess of Devonshire (_post_, Sept. 9, 1784). See _ante_, iii.
21. On the other hand, Mrs. Barbauld says:--'I believe it is true that
in England genius and learning obtain less personal notice than in most
other parts of Europe.' She censures 'the contemptuous manner in which
Lady Wortley Montagu mentioned Richardson:--"The doors of the Great,"
she says, "were never opened to him."' _Richardson Corres._ i. clxxiv.
[377] When Lord Elibank was seventy years old, he wrote:--'I shall be
glad to go five hundred miles to enjoy a day of his company.' Boswell's
_Hebrides_, Sept. 12.
[378] _Romans_, x. 2.
[379] I _Peter_, iii. 15.
[380] Horace Walpole wrote three years earlier:--' Whig principles are
founded on sense; a Whig may be a fool, a Tory must be so.'
_Letters_, vii. 88.
[381] Mr. Barclay, a descendant of Robert Barclay, of Ury, the
celebrated apologist of the people called Quakers, and remarkable for
maintaining the principles of his venerable progenitor, with as much of
the elegance of modern manners, as is consistent with primitive
simplicity, BOSWELL.
[382] Now Bishop of Llandaff, one of the _poorest_ Bishopricks in this
kingdom. His Lordship has written with much zeal to show the propriety
of _equalizing_ the revenues of Bishops. He has informed us that he has
burnt all his chemical papers. The friends of our excellent
constitution, now assailed on every side by innovators and levellers,
would have less regretted the suppression of some of this Lordship's
other writings. BOSWELL. Boswell refers to _A Letter to the Archbishop
of Canterbury by Richard, Lord Bishop of Landaff_, 1782. If the revenues
were made more equal, 'the poorer Bishops,' the Bishop writes, 'would be
freed from the necessity of holding ecclesiastical preferments _in
commendam_ with their Bishopricks,' p. 8.
[383] De Quincey says that Sir Humphry Davy told him, 'that he could
scarcely imagine a time, or a condition of the science, in which the
Bishop's _Essays_ would be superannuated.' De Quincey's _Works_, ii.
106. De Quincey describes the Bishop as being 'always a discontented
man, a railer at the government and the age, which could permit such as
his to pine away ingloriously in one of the humblest among the
Bishopricks.' _Ib_. p. 107. He was, he adds, 'a true Whig,' and would
have been made Archbishop of York had his party staid in power a little
longer in 1807.'
[384] _Rasselas_, chap. xi.
[385] See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Sept. 30.
[386] 'They heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden.'
_Genesis_, iii. 8.
[387]
... 'Vivendi recte qui prorogat horam,
Rusticus expectat dum defluat amnis; at ille
Labitur et labetur in omne volubilis aevum.'
'And sure the man who has it in his power
To practise virtue, and protracts the hour,
Waits like the rustic till the river dried;
Still glides the river, and will ever glide.'
FRANCIS. Horace, _Epist_. i. 2. 41.
[388] See _ante_, p. 59.
[389] See _ante_, iii. 251.
[390] See _ante_, iii. 136.
[391] This assertion is disproved by a comparison of dates. The first
four satires of Young were published in 1725; The South Sea scheme
(which appears to be meant,) was in 1720. MALONE. In Croft's _Life of
Young_, which Johnson adopted, it is stated:--'By the _Universal
Passion_ he acquired no vulgar fortune, more than L3000. A considerable
sum had already been swallowed up in the South Sea.' Johnson's _Works_,
viii. 430. Some of Young's poems were published before 1720.
[392] Crabbe got Johnson to revise his poem, _The Village_ (_post_,
under March 23, 1783). He states, that 'the Doctor did not readily
comply with requests for his opinion; not from any unwillingness to
oblige, but from a painful contention in his mind between a desire of
giving pleasure and a determination to speak truth.' Crabbe's _Works_,
ii. 12. See _ante_, ii. 51, 195, and iii. 373.
[393] Pope's _Essay on Man_, iv. 390. See _ante_, iii. 6, note 2.
[394] He had within the last seven weeks gone up drunk, at least twice,
to a lady's drawing-room. _Ante_, pp. 88, note 1, and 109.
[395] Mr. Croker, though without any authority, prints _unconscious_.
[396] I Corinthians, ix. 27. See _ante_, 295.
[397] 'We walk by faith, not by sight.' 2 Corinthians, v. 7
[398] Dr. Ogden, in his second sermon _On the Articles of the Christian
Faith_, with admirable acuteness thus addresses the opposers of that
Doctrine, which accounts for the confusion, sin and misery, which we
find in this life: 'It would be severe in GOD, you think, to _degrade_
us to such a sad state as this, for the offence of our first parents:
but you can allow him to _place_ us in it without any inducement. Are
our calamities lessened for not being ascribed to Adam? If your
condition be unhappy, is it not still unhappy, whatever was the
occasion? with the aggravation of this reflection, that if it was as
good as it was at first designed, there seems to be somewhat the less
reason to look for its amendment.' BOSWELL.
[399] 'Which taketh away the sin' &c. St. John, i. 29.
[400] See Boswell's Hebrides, August 22.
[401] This unfortunate person, whose full name was Thomas Fysche Palmer,
afterwards went to Dundee, in Scotland, where he officiated as minister
to a congregation of the sect who called themselves _Unitarians_, from a
notion that they distinctively worship ONE GOD, because they _deny_ the
mysterious doctrine of the TRINITY. They do not advert that the great
body of the Christian Church, in maintaining that mystery, maintain also
the _Unity_ of the GODHEAD; the 'TRINITY in UNITY!--three persons and
ONE GOD.' The Church humbly adores the DIVINITY as exhibited in the holy
Scriptures. The Unitarian sect vainly presumes to comprehend and define
the ALMIGHTY. Mr. Palmer having heated his mind with political
speculations, became so much dissatisfied with our excellent
Constitution, as to compose, publish, and circulate writings, which were
found to be so seditious and dangerous, that upon being found guilty by
a Jury, the Court of Justiciary in Scotland sentenced him to
transportation for fourteen years. A loud clamour against this sentence
was made by some Members of both Houses of Parliament; but both Houses
approved of it by a great majority; and he was conveyed to the
settlement for convicts in New South Wales. BOSWELL. This note first
appears in the third edition. Mr. Palmer was sentenced to seven (not
fourteen) years transportation in Aug. 1793. It was his fellow prisoner,
Mr. Muir, an advocate, who was sentenced to fourteen years. _Ann. Reg._
1793, p. 40. When these sentences were brought before the House of
Commons, Mr. Fox said that it was 'the Lord-Advocate's fervent wish that
his native principles of justice should be introduced into this country;
and that on the ruins of the common law of England should be erected the
infamous fabric of Scottish persecution. ... If that day should ever
arrive, if the tyrannical laws of Scotland should ever be introduced in
opposition to the humane laws of England, it would then be high time for
my hon. friends and myself to settle our affairs, and retire to some
happier clime, where we might at least enjoy those rights which God has
given to man, and which his nature tells him he has a right to demand.'
_Parl. Hist._ xxx. 1563. For _Unitarians_, see _ante_, ii. 408, note I.
[402] Taken from Herodotus. [Bk. ii. ch. 104.] BOSWELL.
[403] 'The mummies,' says Blakesley, 'have straight hair, and in the
paintings the Egyptians are represented as red, not black.' _Ib_. note.
[404] See _ante_, i. 441, and _post_, March 28, and June 3, 1782.
[405] Mr. Dawkins visited Palmyra in 1751. He had 'an escort of the Aga
of Hassia's best Arab horsemen.' Johnson was perhaps astonished at the
size of their caravan, 'which was increased to about 200 persons.' The
writer treats the whole matter with great brevity. Wood's _Ruins of
Palmyra_, p. 33. On their return the travellers discovered a party of
Arab horsemen, who gave them an alarm. Happily these Arabs were still
more afraid of them, and were at once plundered by the escort, 'who
laughed at our remonstrances against their injustice.' Wood's _Ruins of
Balbec_, p. 2.
[406] He wrote a _Life of Watts_, which Johnson quoted. _Works_, viii.
382.
[407] See _ante_, iii. 422, note 6.
[408] In the first two editions _formal_.
[409] Johnson maintains this in _The Idler_, No. 74. 'Few,' he says,
'have reason to complain of nature as unkindly sparing of the gifts of
memory ... The true art of memory is the art of attention.' See
_ante_, iii. 191.
[410]The first of the definitions given by Johnson of _to remember_ is
_to bear in mind anything; not to forget. To recollect_ he defines _to
recover to memory_. We may, perhaps, assume that Boswell said, 'I did
not recollect that the chair was broken;' and that Johnson replied, 'you
mean, you did not remember. That you did not remember is your own fault.
It was in your mind that it was broken, and therefore you ought to have
remembered it. It was not a case of recollecting; for we recollect, that
is, recover to memory, what is not in our mind.' In the passage _ante_,
i. 112, which begins, 'I indeed doubt if he could have remembered,' we
find in the first two editions not _remembered_, but _recollected_.
Perhaps this change is due to euphony, as _collected_ comes a few lines
before. Horace Walpole, in one of his _Letters_ (i. 15), distinguishes
the two words, on his revisiting his old school, Eton:--'By the way, the
clock strikes the old cracked sound--I recollect so much, and remember
so little.'
[411] He made the same boast at St. Andrews. See Boswell's _Hebrides_,
Aug. 19. He was, I believe, speaking of his translation of Courayer's
_Life of Paul Sarpi and Notes_, of which some sheets were printed off.
_Ante_, i. 135.
[412] Horace Walpole, after mentioning that George III's mother, who
died in 1772, left but L27,000 when she was reckoned worth at least
L300,000, adds:--'It is no wonder that it became the universal belief
that she had wasted all on Lord Bute. This became still more probable as
he had made the purchase of the estate at Luton, at the price of
L114,000, before he was visibly worth L20,000; had built a palace there,
another in town, and had furnished the former in the most expensive
manner, bought pictures and books, and made a vast park and lake.'
_Journal of the Reign of George III_, i. 19.
[413] To him Boswell dedicated his _Thesis_ as _excelsae familiae de
Bute spei alterae_ (_ante_, ii. 20). In 1775, he wrote of him:--'He is
warmly my friend and has engaged to do for me.' _Letters of Boswell_,
p. 186
[414] He was mistaken in this. See _ante_, i. 260; also iii. 420.
[415] In England in like manner, and perhaps for the same reason, all
Attorneys have been converted into Solicitors.
[416] 'There is at Edinburgh a society or corporation of errand boys,
called Cawdies, who ply in the streets at night with paper lanthorns,
and are very serviceable in carrying messages.' _Humphrey Clinker_.
Letter of Aug. 8.
[417] Their services in this sense are noticed in the same letter.
[418]
'The formal process shall be turned to sport,
And you dismissed with honour by the Court.'
FRANCIS. Horace, _Satires_, ii.i.86.
[419] Mr. Robertson altered this word to _jocandi_, he having found in
Blackstone that to irritate is actionable. BOSWELL.
[420] Quoted by Johnson, _ante_, ii. l97.
[421] His god-daughter. See _post_ May 10, 1784.
[422] See _post_, under Dec. 20, 1782
[423] See _ante_, i. 155
[424] The will of King Alfred, alluded to in this letter, from the
original Saxon, in the library of Mr. Astle, has been printed at the
expense of the University of Oxford. BOSWELL.
[425] He was a surgeon in this small Norfolk town. Dr. Burney's
_Memoirs_, i. 106.
[426] Burney visited Johnson first in 1758, when he was living in Gough
Square. _Ante_, i. 328.
[427] Mme. D'Arblay says that Dr. Johnson sent them to Dr. Burney's
house, directed 'For the Broom Gentleman.' Dr. Burney's _Memoirs_,
ii. 180.
[428] 'Sept. 14, 1781. Dr. Johnson has been very unwell indeed. Once I
was quite frightened about him; but he continues his strange
discipline--starving, mercury, opium; and though for a time half
demolished by its severity, he always in the end rises superior both to
the disease and the remedy, which commonly is the most alarming of the
two.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii. 107. On Sept. 18, his birthday, he
wrote:--'As I came home [from church], I thought I had never begun any
period of life so placidly. I have always been accustomed to let this
day pass unnoticed, but it came this time into my mind that some little
festivity was not improper. I had a dinner, and invited Allen and
Levett.' _Pr. and Med._ p. 199.
[429] This remark, I have no doubt, is aimed at Hawkins, who (_Life_, p.
553) pretends to account for this trip.
[430] _Pr. and Med._ p. 201. BOSWELL.
[431] He wrote from Lichfield on the previous Oct. 27:--'All here is
gloomy; a faint struggle with the tediousness of time; a doleful
confession of present misery, and the approach seen and felt of what is
most dreaded and most shunned. But such is the lot of man.' _Piozzi
Letters_, ii. 209.
[432] The truth of this has been proved by sad experience. BOSWELL. Mrs.
Boswell died June 4, 1789. MALONE.
[433] See account of him in the _Gent. Mag_. Feb. 1785. BOSWELL, see
ante, i. 243, note 3.
[434] Mrs. Piozzi (_Synonymy_, ii. 79), quoting this verse, under
_Officious_, says;--'Johnson, always thinking neglect the worst
misfortune that could befall a man, looked on a character of this
description with less aversion than I do.'
[435]
'Content thyself to be _obscurely good_.'
Addisons _Cato_, act. iv. sc. 4.
[436] In both editions of Sir John Hawkins's _Life of Dr. Johnson_,
'letter'd _ignorance_' is printed. BOSWELL. Mr. Croker (_Boswell_, p. I)
says that 'Mr. Boswell is habitually unjust to Sir J. Hawkins.' As some
kind of balance, I suppose, to this injustice, he suppresses this note.
[437] Johnson repeated this line to me thus:--
'And Labour steals an hour to die.'
But he afterwards altered it to the present reading. BOSWELL. This poem
is printed in the _Ann. Reg_. for 1783, p. 189, with the following
variations:--l. 18, for 'ready help' 'useful care': l. 28, 'His single
talent,' 'The single talent'; l. 33, 'no throbs of fiery pain,' 'no
throbbing fiery pain'; l. 36, 'and freed,' 'and forced.' On the next
page it is printed _John Gilpin_.
[438] Mr. Croker says that this line shows that 'some of Gray's happy
expressions lingered in Johnson's memory' He quotes a line that comes at
the end of the _Ode on Vicissitude_--'From busy day, the peaceful
night.' This line is not Gray's, but Mason's.
[439] Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale on Aug. 14, 1780:--'If you want
events, Here is Mr. Levett just come in at fourscore from a walk to
Hampstead, eight miles, in August.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 177.
[440] In the original, _March_ 20. On the afternoon of March 20 Lord
North announced in the House of Commons 'that his Majesty's Ministers
were no more.' _Parl. Hist_. xxii. 1215.
[441] _Pr. and Med_. p. 209 [207]. BOSWELL.
[442] See _ante_, ii. 355, iii. 46, iv. 81, 100. Mr. Seward records in
his _Biographiana_, p. 600--without however giving the year--that
'Johnson being asked what the Opposition meant by their flaming speeches
and violent pamphlets against Lord North's administration, answered:
"They mean, Sir, rebellion; they mean in spite to destroy that country
which they are not permitted to govern."'