Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) - Boswell
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[443] In the previous December the City of London in an address, writes
Horace Walpole, 'besought the King to remove both his public and
_private_ counsellors, and used these stunning and memorable
words:--_"Your armies are captured; the wonted superiority of your
navies is annihilated, your dominions are lost."_ Words that could be
used to no other King; no King had ever lost so much without losing all.
If James II. lost his crown, yet the crown lost no dominions.' _Journal
of the Reign of George III_, ii. 483. The address is given in the _Ann.
Reg._ xxiv. 320. On Aug. 4 of this year Johnson wrote to Dr.
Taylor:--'Perhaps no nation not absolutely conquered has declined so
much in so short a time. We seem to be sinking. Suppose the Irish,
having already gotten a free trade and an independent Parliament, should
say we will have a King and ally ourselves with the House of Bourbon,
what could be done to hinder or overthrow them?' Mr. Morrison's
_Autographs_, vol. ii.
[444] In February and March, 1771, the House of Commons ordered eight
printers to attend at the bar on a charge of breach of privilege, in
publishing reports of debates. One of the eight, Miller of the _Evening
Post_, when the messenger of the House tried to arrest him, gave the man
himself into custody on a charge of assault. The messenger was brought
before Lord Mayor Crosby and Aldermen Wilkes and Oliver, and a warrant
was made out for his commitment. Bail was thereupon offered and accepted
for his appearance at the next sessions. The Lord Mayor and Oliver were
sent to the Tower by the House. Wilkes was ordered to appear on April 8;
but the Ministry, not daring to face his appearance, adjourned the House
till the 9th. A committee was appointed by ballot to inquire into the
late obstructions to the execution of the orders of the House. It
recommended the consideration of the expediency of the House ordering
that Miller should be taken into custody. The report, when read, was
received with a roar of laughter. Nothing was done. Such was, to quote
the words of Burke in the _Annual Register_ (xiv. 70), 'the miserable
result of all the pretended vigour of the Ministry.' See _Parl. Hist._
xvii. 58, 186.
[445] Lord Cornwallis's army surrendered at York Town, five days before
Sir Henry Clinton's fleet and army arrived off the Chesapeak. _Ann.
Reg._ xxiv. 136.
[446] Johnson wrote on March 30:--'The men have got in whom I have
endeavoured to keep out; but I hope they will do better than their
predecessors; it will not be easy to do worse.' Croker's _Boswell_,
p. 706.
[447] This note was in answer to one which accompanied one of the
earliest pamphlets on the subject of Chatterton's forgery, entitled
_Cursory Observations on the Poems attributed to Thomas Rowley_, &c. Mr.
Thomas Warton's very able _Inquiry_ appeared about three months
afterwards; and Mr. Tyrwhitt's admirable _Vindication of his Appendix_
in the summer of the same hear, left the believers in this daring
imposture nothing but 'the resolution to say again what had been said
before.' MALONE.
[448] _Pr. and Med._ p. 207. BOSWELL.
[449] He addressed to him an Ode in Latin, entitled _Ad Thomam Laurence,
medicum doctissimum, quum filium peregre agentem desiderio nimis tristi
prosequeretur. Works_, i. 165.
[450] Mr. Holder, in the Strand, Dr. Johnson's apothecary. BOSWELL.
[451] 'Johnson should rather have written "imperatum est." But the
meaning of the words is perfectly clear. "If you say yes, the messenger
has orders to bring Holder to me." Mr. Croker translates the words as
follows:-"If you consent, pray tell the messenger to bring Holder to
me." If Mr. Croker is resolved to write on points of classical learning,
we would advise him to begin by giving an hour every morning to our old
friend Corderius.' Macaulay's _Essays_, ed. 1843, i 366. In _The Answers
to Mr. Macaulay's Criticism_, prefixed to Croker's _Boswell_, p. 13, it
is suggested that Johnson wrote either _imperetur_ or _imperator_. The
letter may be translated: 'A fresh chill, a fresh cough, and a fresh
difficulty in breathing call for a fresh letting of blood. Without your
advice, however, I would not submit to the operation. I cannot well come
to you, nor need you come to me. Say yes or no in one word, and leave
the rest to Holder and to me. If you say yes, let the messenger be
bidden (imperetur) to bring Holder to me. May 1, 1782. When _you_ have
left, whither shall I turn?'
[452] Soon after the above letter, Dr. Lawrence left London, but not
before the palsy had made so great a progress as to render him unable to
write for himself. The folio wing are extracts from letters addressed by
Dr. Johnson to one of his daughters:--
'You will easily believe with what gladness I read that you had heard
once again that voice to which we have all so often delighted to attend.
May you often hear it. If we had his mind, and his tongue, we could
spare the rest.
'I am not vigorous, but much better than when dear Dr. Lawrence held my
pulse the last time. Be so kind as to let me know, from one little
interval to another, the state of his body. I am pleased that he
remembers me, and hope that it never can be possible for me to forget
him. July 22, 1782.'
'I am much delighted even with the small advances which dear Dr.
Lawrence makes towards recovery. If we could have again but his mind,
and his tongue in his mind, and his right hand, we should not much
lament the rest. I should not despair of helping the swelled hand by
electricity, if it were frequently and diligently supplied.
'Let me know from time to time whatever happens; and I hope I need not
tell you, how much I am interested in every change. Aug. 26, 1782.'
'Though the account with which you favoured me in your last letter could
not give me the pleasure that I wished, yet I was glad to receive it;
for my affection to my dear friend makes me desirous of knowing his
state, whatever it be. I beg, therefore, that you continue to let me
know, from time to time, all that you observe.
'Many fits of severe illness have, for about three months past, forced
my kind physician often upon my mind. I am now better; and hope
gratitude, as well as distress, can be a motive to remembrance.
Bolt-court, Fleet-street, Feb. 4, 1783.' BOSWELL.
[453] Mr. Langton being at this time on duty at Rochester, he is
addressed by his military title. BOSWELL.
[454] Eight days later he recorded:--'I have in ten days written to
Aston, Lucy, Hector, Langton, Boswell; perhaps to all by whom my letters
are desired.' _Pr. and Med._ 209. He had written also to Mrs. Thrale,
but her affection, it should seem from this, he was beginning to doubt.
[455] See _ante_, p. 84.
[456] See _ante_, i. 247.
[457] See _post_, p. 158, note 4.
[458] Johnson has here expressed a sentiment similar to that contained
in one of Shenstone's stanzas, to which, in his life of that poet, he
has given high praise:--
'I prized every hour that went by,
Beyond all that had pleased me before;
But now they are gone [past] and I sigh,
I grieve that I prized them no more.'
J. BOSWELL, JUN.
[459] She was his god-daughter. See _post_, May 10, 1784.
[460] 'Dr. Johnson gave a very droll account of the children of Mr.
Langton, "who," he said, "might be very good children, if they were let
alone; but the father is never easy when he is not making them do
something which they cannot do; they must repeat a fable, or a speech,
or the Hebrew alphabet, and they might as well count twenty for what
they know of the matter; however, the father says half, for he prompts
every other word."' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, i. 73. See _ante_, p.
20, note 2.
[461] A part of this letter having been torn off, I have, from the
evident meaning, supplied a few words and half-words at the ends and
beginnings of lines. BOSWELL.
[462] See vol. ii. p. 459. BOSWELL. She was Hector's widowed sister, and
Johnson's first love. In the previous October, writing of a visit to
Birmingham, he said:--'Mrs. Careless took me under her care, and told me
when I had tea enough.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 205.
[463] This letter cannot belong to this year. In it Johnson says of his
health, 'at least it is not worse.' But 1782 found him in very bad
health; he passed almost the whole of the year 'in a succession of
disorders' (_post_, p. 156). What he says of friendship renders it
almost certain that the letter was written while he had still Thrale;
and him he lost in April, 1781. Had it been written after June, 1779,
but before Thrale's death, the account given of health would have been
even better than it is (_ante_, iii. 397). It belongs perhaps to the
year 1777 or 1778.
[464] 'To a man who has survived all the companions of his youth ...
this full-peopled world is a dismal solitude.' _Rambler_, No. 69.
[465] See _ante_, i. 63.
[466] They met on these days in the years 1772, 3, 5, 6, 8, 9, 81, and
3.
[467] The ministry had resigned on the 20th. _Ante_, p. 139, note 1.
[468] Thirty-two years earlier he wrote in _The Rambler_, No. 53:-'In
the prospect of poverty there is nothing but gloom and melancholy; the
mind and body suffer together; its miseries bring no alleviation; it is
a state in which every virtue is obscured, and in which no conduct can
avoid reproach.' And again in No. 57:--'The prospect of penury in age is
so gloomy and terrifying, that every man who looks before him must
resolve to avoid it; and it must be avoided generally by the science of
sparing.' See _ante_. 441.
[469] See _ante_, p. 128.
[470] Hannah More wrote in April of this year (_Memoirs_, i.
249):--'Poor Johnson is in a bad state of health. I fear his
constitution is broken up.' (Yet in one week he dined out four times.
_Piozzi Letters_, ii. 237.) At one of these dinners, 'I urged him,' she
continues (_ib_. p. 251) 'to take a _little_ wine. He replied, "I can't
drink a _little_, child; therefore, I never touch it. Abstinence is as
easy to me as temperance would be difficult." He was very good-humoured
and gay. One of the company happened to say a word about poetry, "Hush,
hush," said he, "it is dangerous to say a word of poetry before her; it
is talking of the art of war before Hannibal."'
[471] This book was published in 1781, and, according to Lowndes,
reached its seventh edition by 1787. See _ante_, i. 214.
[472] The clergyman's letter was dated May 4. _Gent. Mag._ 1786, p. 93.
Johnson is explaining the reason of his delay in acknowledging it.
[473] What follows appeared in the _Morning Chronicle_ of May 29,
1782:--'A correspondent having mentioned, in the _Morning Chronicle_ of
December 12, the last clause of the following paragraph, as seeming to
favour suicide; we are requested to print the whole passage, that its
true meaning may appear, which is not to recommend suicide but exercise.
'Exercise cannot secure us from that dissolution to which we are
decreed: but while the soul and body continue united, it can make the
association pleasing, and give probable hopes that they shall be
disjoined by an easy separation. It was a principle among the ancients,
that acute diseases are from Heaven, and chronical from ourselves; the
dart of death, indeed, falls from Heaven, but we poison it by our own
misconduct: to die is the fate of man; but to die with lingering anguish
is generally his folly.' [_The Rambler_, No. 85.] BOSWELL.
[474] The Correspondence may be seen at length in the _Gent. Mag._ Feb.
1786. BOSWELL. Johnson, advising Dr. Taylor 'to take as much exercise as
he can bear,' says:-'I take the true definition of exercise to be labour
without weariness.' _Notes and Queries_, 6th S. v. 461.
[475] Here he met Hannah More. 'You cannot imagine,' she writes
(_Memoirs_, i. 261), 'with what delight he showed me every part of his
own college. Dr. Adams had contrived a very pretty piece of gallantry.
We spent the day and evening at his house. After dinner, Johnson begged
to conduct me to see the College; he would let no one show it me but
himself. "This was my room; this Shenstone's." Then, after pointing out
all the rooms of the poets who had been of his college, "In short," said
he, "we were a nest of singing-birds." When we came into the
common-room, we spied a fine large print of Johnson, hung up that very
morning, with this motto:--_And is not Johnson ours, himself a host?_
Under which stared you in the face--_From Miss More's "Sensibility_."
This little incident amused us; but, alas! Johnson looks very ill
indeed--spiritless and wan. However, he made an effort to be cheerful.'
Miss Adams wrote on June 14, 1782:--'On Wednesday we had here a
delightful blue-stocking party. Dr. and Mrs. Kennicott and Miss More,
Dr. Johnson, Mr. Henderson, &c., dined here. Poor Dr. Johnson is in very
bad health, but he exerted himself as much as he could, and being very
fond of Miss More, he talked a good deal, and every word he says is
worth recording. He took great delight in showing Miss More every part
of Pembroke College, and his own rooms, &c., and told us many things
about himself when here. .. June 19, 1782. We dined yesterday for the
last time in the company with Dr. Johnson; he went away to-day. A warm
dispute arose; it was about cider or wine freezing, and all the spirit
retreating to the center.' _Pemb. Coll. MSS._
[476] 'I never retired to rest without feeling the justness of the
Spanish proverb, "Let him who sleeps too much borrow the pillow of a
debtor."' Johnson's _Works_, iv. 14.
[477] See _ante_, i. 441.
[478] Which I celebrated in the Church of England chapel at Edinburgh,
founded by Lord Chief Baron Smith, of respectable and pious
memory. BOSWELL.
[479] See _ante_, p. 80.
[480] The Reverend Mr. Temple, Vicar of St. Gluvias, Cornwall. BOSWELL.
See _ante_, i. 436, and ii. 316.
[481] 'He had settled on his eldest son,' says Dr. Rogers
(_Boswelliana_, p. 129), 'the ancestral estate, with an unencumbered
rental of Ll,600 a year.' That the rental, whatever it was, was not
unencumbered is shewn by the passage from Johnson's letter, _post_, p.
155, note 4. Boswell wrote to Malone in 1791 (Croker's _Boswell_, p.
828):--'The clear money on which I can reckon out of my estate is
scarcely L900 a year.'
[482] Cowley's _Ode to Liberty_, Stanza vi.
[483] 'I do beseech all the succeeding heirs of entail,' wrote Boswell
in his will, 'to be kind to the tenants, and not to turn out old
possessors to get a little more rent.' Rogers's _Boswelliana, p. 186.
[484] Macleod, the Laird of Rasay. See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Sept. 8.
[485] A farm in the Isle of Skye, where Johnson wrote his Latin Ode to
Mrs. Thrale. _Ib._ Sept. 6.
[486] Johnson wrote to Dr. Taylor on Oct. 4:--'Boswel's (sic) father is
dead, and Boswel wrote me word that he would come to London for my
advice. [The] advice which I sent him is to stay at home, and [busy]
himself with his own affairs. He has a good es[tate], considerably
burthened by settlements, and he is himself in debt. But if his wife
lives, I think he will be prudent.' _Notes and Queries_, 6th S.
v. 462.
[487] Miss Burney wrote in the first week in December:--'Dr. Johnson was
in most excellent good humour and spirits.' She describes later on a
brilliant party which he attended at Miss Monckton's on the 8th, where
the people were 'superbly dressed,' and where he was 'environed with
listeners.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii. 186, and 190. See _ante_, p.
108, note 4.
[488] See _ante,_, iii. 337, where Johnson got 'heated' when Boswell
maintained this.
[489] See _ante_, in. 395.
[490] The greatest part of the copy, or manuscript of _The Lives of the
Poets_ had been given by Johnson to Boswell (_ante_, iv. 36).
[491] Of her twelve children but these three were living. She was
forty-one years old.
[492] 'The family,' writes Dr. Burney, 'lived in the library, which used
to be the parlour. There they breakfasted. Over the bookcases were hung
Sir Joshua's portraits of Mr. Thrale's friends--Baretti, Burke, Burney,
Chambers, Garrick, Goldsmith, Johnson, Murphy, Reynolds, Lord Sandys,
Lord Westcote, and in the same picture Mrs. Thrale and her eldest
daughter.' Mr. Thrale's portrait was also there. Dr. Burney's _Memoirs_,
ii. 80, and Prior's _Malone_, p. 259.
[493] _Pr. and Med._ p. 214. BOSWELL.
[494] Boswell omits a line that follows this prayer:--'O Lord, so far
as, &c.,--Thrale.' This means, I think, 'so far as it might be lawful,
I prayed for Thrale.' The following day Johnson entered:--'I was called
early. I packed up my bundles, and used the foregoing prayer with my
morning devotions, somewhat, I think, enlarged. Being earlier than the
family, I read St. Paul's farewell in the _Acts_ [xx. 17-end], and then
read fortuitously in the gospels, which was my parting use of
the library.'
[495] Johnson, no doubt, was leaving Streatham because Mrs. Thrale was
leaving it. 'Streatham,' wrote Miss Burney, on Aug. 12 of this year, 'my
other home, and the place where I have long thought my residence
dependent only on my own pleasure, is already let for three years to
Lord Shelburne.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii.151. Johnson was not yet
leaving the Thrale family, for he joined them at Brighton, and he was
living with them the following spring in Argyll-street. Nevertheless,
if, as all Mrs. Thrale's friends strongly held, her second marriage was
blameworthy, Boswell's remark admits of defence. Miss Burney in her
diary and letters keeps the secret which Mrs. Thrale had confided to her
of her attachment to Mr. Piozzi; but in the _Memoirs of Dr. Burney_,
which, as Mme. D'Arblay, she wrote long afterwards, she leaves little
doubt that Streatham was given up as a step towards the second marriage.
In 1782, on a visit there, she found that her father 'and all
others--Dr. Johnson not excepted--were cast into the same gulf of
general neglect. As Mrs. Thrale became more and more dissatisfied with
her own situation, and impatient for its relief, she slighted Johnson's
counsel, and avoided his society.' Mme. D'Arblay describes a striking
scene in which her father, utterly puzzled by 'sad and altered
Streatham,' left it one day with tears in his eyes. Another day, Johnson
accompanied her to London. 'His look was stern, though dejected, but
when his eye, which, however shortsighted, was quick to mental
perception, saw how ill at ease she appeared, all sternness subsided
into an undisguised expression of the strongest emotion, while, with a
shaking hand and pointing finger, he directed her looks to the mansion
from which they were driving; and when they faced it from the
coach-window, as they turned into Streatham Common, tremulously
exclaimed, "That house ...is lost to _me_... for ever."' Johnson's
letter to Langton of March 20, 1782 (_ante_, p. 145), in which he says
that he was 'musing in his chamber at Mrs. Thrale's,' shews that so
early as that date he foresaw that a change was coming. Boswell's
statement that 'Mrs. Thrale became less assiduous to please Johnson,'
might have been far more strongly worded. See Dr. Burney's _Memoirs_,
ii. 243-253. Lord Shelburne, who as Prime Minister was negotiating peace
with the United States, France, and Spain, hired Mrs. Thrale's house 'in
order to be constantly near London.' Fitzmaurice's _Shelburne_,
iii. 242.
[496] Mr. Croker quotes the following from the _Rose MSS_.:--'Oct. 6,
Die Dominica, 1782. Pransus sum Streathamiae agninum crus coctum cum
herbis (spinach) comminutis, farcimen farinaceum cum uvis passis, lumbos
bovillos, et pullum gallinae: Turcicae; et post carnes missas, ficus,
uvas, non admodum maturas, ita voluit anni intemperies, cum malis
Persicis, iis tamen duris. Non laetus accubui, cibum modice sumpsi, ne
intemperantia ad extremum peccaretur. Si recte memini, in mentem
venerunt epulae in exequiis Hadoni celebratae. Streathamiam
quando revisam?'
[497] 'Mr. Metcalfe is much with Dr. Johnson, but seems to have taken an
unaccountable dislike to Mrs. Thrale, to whom he never speaks.... He is
a shrewd, sensible, keen, and very clever man.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_,
ii. 172, 174. He, Burke, and Malone were Sir Joshua's executors.
Northcote's _Reynolds_, ii. 293.
[498] Boswell should have shown, for he must have known it, that Johnson
was Mrs. Thrale's guest at Brighton. Miss Burney was also of the party.
Her account of him is a melancholy one:--'Oct. 28. Dr. Johnson
accompanied us to a ball, to the universal amazement of all who saw him
there; but he said he had found it so dull being quite alone the
preceding evening, that he determined upon going with us; "for," said
he, "it cannot be worse than being alone."' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii.
161. 'Oct. 29. Mr. Pepys joined Dr. Johnson, with whom he entered into
an argument, in which he was so roughly confuted, and so severely
ridiculed, that he was hurt and piqued beyond all power of disguise,
and, in the midst of the discourse, suddenly turned from him, and,
wishing Mrs. Thrale goodnight, very abruptly withdrew. Dr. Johnson was
certainly right with respect to the argument and to reason; but his
opposition was so warm, and his wit so satirical and exulting, that I
was really quite grieved to see how unamiable he appeared, and how
greatly he made himself dreaded by all, and by many abhorred.' _Ib_. p.
163. 'Oct. 30. In the evening we all went to Mrs. Hatsel's. Dr. Johnson
was not invited.' _Ib_. p. 165. 'Oct. 31. A note came to invite us all,
except Dr. Johnson, to Lady Rothes's.' _Ib_. p. 168. 'Nov. 2. We went to
Lady Shelley's. Dr. Johnson again excepted in the invitation. He is
almost constantly omitted, either from too much respect or too much
fear. I am sorry for it, as he hates being alone.' _Ib_. p. 160. 'Nov.
7. Mr. Metcalfe called upon Dr. Johnson, and took him out an airing. Mr.
Hamilton is gone, and Mr. Metcalfe is now the only person out of this
house that voluntarily communicates with the Doctor. He has been in a
terrible severe humour of late, and has really frightened all the
people, till they almost ran from him. To me only I think he is now
kind, for Mrs. Thrale fares worse than anybody.' _Ib_. p. 177.
[499] '"Dr. Johnson has asked me," said Mr. Metcalfe, "to go with him to
Chichester, to see the cathedral, and I told him I would certainly go if
he pleased; but why I cannot imagine, for how shall a blind man see a
cathedral?" "I believe," quoth I [i.e. Miss Burney] "his blindness is as
much the effect of absence as of infirmity, for he sees wonderfully at
times."' _Ib_. p. 174. For Johnson's eyesight, see _ante_, i. 41.
[500] The second letter is dated the 28th. Johnson says:--'I have looked
_often_,' &c.; but he does not say 'he has been _much_ informed,' but
only 'informed.' Both letters are in the _Gent. Mag._ 1784, p. 893.
[501] The reference is to Rawlinson's MS. collections for a continuation
of Wood's _Athenae_ (Macray's _Annals of the Bodleian_, p. 181).
[502] Jortin's sermons are described by Johnson as 'very elegant.'
_Ante_, in. 248. He and Thirlby are mentioned by him in the _Life of
Pope. Works_, viii. 254.
[503] Markland was born 1693, died 1776. His notes on some of Euripides'
_Plays_ were published at the expense of Dr. Heberden. Markland had
previously destroyed a great many other notes; writing in 1764 he
said:--'Probably it will be a long time (if ever) before this sort of
learning will revive in England; in which it is easy to foresee that
there must be a disturbance in a few years, and all public disorders are
enemies to this sort of literature.' _Gent. Mag._ 1778, P. 3l0. 'I
remember,' writes Mrs. Piozzi (_Anec_. p. 252), 'when lamentation was
made of the neglect shown to Jeremiah Markland, a great philologist, as
some one ventured to call him: "He is a scholar undoubtedly, Sir,"
replied Dr. Johnson, "but remember that he would run from the world, and
that it is not the world's business to run after him. I hate a fellow
whom pride, or cowardice, or laziness drives into a corner, and [who]
does nothing when he is there but sit and _growl_; let him come out as I
do, and _bark_"' A brief account of him is given in the _Ann. Reg._
xix. 45.
[504] Nichols published in 1784 a brief account of Thirlby, nearly half
of it being written by Johnson. Thirlby was born in 1692 and died in
1753. 'His versatility led him to try the round of what are called the
learned professions.' His life was marred by drink and insolence.' His
mind seems to have been tumultuous and desultory, and he was glad to
catch any employment that might produce attention without anxiety; such
employment, as Dr. Battie has observed, is necessary for madmen.' _Gent.
Mag._ 1784, pp. 260, 893.
[505] He was attacked, says Northcote (_Life of Reynolds_, ii. 131), 'by
a slight paralytic affection, after an almost uninterrupted course of
good health for many years.' Miss Burney wrote on Dec. 28 to one of her
sisters:--'How can you wish any wishes [matrimonial wishes] about Sir
Joshua and me? A man who has had two shakes of the palsy!' Mme.
D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii. 218.
[506] Dr. Patten in Sept. 1781 (Croker's _Boswell_, p. 699) informed
Johnson of Wilson's intended dedication. Johnson, in his reply,
said:--'What will the world do but look on and laugh when one scholar
dedicates to another?'