Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) - Boswell
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[572] See _ante_, i. 368.
[573] See _ante_, i. 396.
[574] I am happy, however, to mention a pleasing instance of his
enduring with great gentleness to hear one of his most striking
particularities pointed out:--Miss Hunter, a niece of his friend
Christopher Smart, when a very young girl, struck by his extraordinary
motions, said to him, 'Pray, Dr. Johnson, why do you make such strange
gestures?' 'From bad habit,' he replied. 'Do you, my dear, take care to
guard against bad habits.' This I was told by the young lady's brother
at Margate. BOSWELL. Boswell had himself told Johnson of some of them,
at least in writing. Johnson read in manuscript his _Journal of a Tour
to the Hebrides_. Boswell says in a note on Oct. 12:--'It is remarkable
that Dr. Johnson should have read this account of some of his own
peculiar habits, without saying anything on the subject, which I hoped
he would have done.'
[575] See _ante_, ii. 42, note 2, and iii. 324.
[576] Johnson, after stating that some of Milton's manuscripts prove
that 'in the early part of his life he wrote with much care,'
continues:--'Such reliques show how excellence is acquired; what we hope
ever to do with ease, we must learn first to do with diligence.'
_Works_, vii. 119. Lord Chesterfield (_Letters_, iii. 146) had made the
same rule as Johnson:--'I was,' he writes, 'early convinced of the
importance and powers of eloquence; and from that moment I applied
myself to it. I resolved not to utter one word even in common
conversation that should not be the most expressive and the most elegant
that the language could supply me with for that purpose; by which means
I have acquired such a certain degree of habitual eloquence, that I must
now really take some pains if I would express myself very inelegantly.'
[577] 'Dr. Johnson,' wrote Malone in 1783, 'is as correct and elegant in
his common conversation as in his writings. He never seems to study
either for thoughts or words. When first introduced I was very young;
yet he was as accurate in his conversation as if he had been talking to
the first scholar in England.' Prior's _Malone_, p. 92. See _post_,
under Aug. 29, 1783.
[578] See _ante_, iii. 216.
[579] See _ante_, ii. 323.
[580] The justness of this remark is confirmed by the following story,
for which I am indebted to Lord Eliot:--A country parson, who was
remarkable for quoting scraps of Latin in his sermons, having died, one
of his parishioners was asked how he liked his successor. 'He is a very
good preacher,' was his answer, 'but no _latiner_.' BOSWELL. For the
original of Lord Eliot's story see Twells's _Life of Dr. E. Pocock_, ed.
1816, p. 94. Reynolds said that 'Johnson always practised on every
occasion the rule of speaking his best, whether the person to whom he
addressed himself was or was not capable of comprehending him. "If,"
says he, "I am understood, my labour is not lost. If it is above their
comprehension, there is some gratification, though it is the admiration
of ignorance;" and he said those were the most sincere admirers; and
quoted Baxter, who made a rule never to preach a sermon without saying
something which he knew was beyond the comprehension of his audience, in
order to inspire their admiration.' Taylor's _Reynolds_, ii. 456.
Addison, in _The Spectator_, No. 221, tells of a preacher in a country
town who outshone a more ignorant rival, by quoting every now and then a
Latin sentence from one of the Fathers. 'The other finding his
congregation mouldering every Sunday, and hearing at length what was the
occasion of it, resolved to give his parish a little Latin in his turn;
but being unacquainted with any of the Fathers, he digested into his
sermons the whole book of _Quae Genus_, adding, however, such
explications to it as he thought might be for the benefit of his people.
He afterwards entered upon _As in praesenti_, which he converted in the
same manner to the use of his parishioners. This in a very little time
thickened his audience, filled his church, and routed his antagonist.'
[581] See _ante_, ii. 96
[582] '"Well," said he, "we had good talk." BOSWELL. "Yes, Sir; you
tossed and gored several persons."' _Ante,_ ii. 66.
[583] Dr. J. H. Burton says of Hume (_Life, ii. 31_):--'No Scotsman
could write a book of respectable talent without calling forth his loud
and warm eulogiums. Wilkie was to be the Homer, Blacklock the Pindar,
and Home the Shakespeare or something still greater of his country.' See
_ante_, ii. 121, 296, 306.
[584] _The Present State of Music in France and Italy,_ I vol. 1771, and
_The Present State of Music in Germany, &c.,_ 2 vols. 1773. Johnson must
have skipped widely in reading these volumes, for though Dr. Burney
describes his travels, yet he writes chiefly of music.
[585] Boswell's son James says that he heard from his father, that the
passage which excited this strong emotion was the following:--
'Tis night, and the landscape is lovely no more:
I mourn, but, ye woodlands, I mourn not for you;
For morn is approaching, your charms to restore,
Perfumed with fresh fragrance, and glittering with dew;
Nor yet for the ravage of winter I mourn;
Kind Nature the embryo blossom will save:
But when shall spring visit the mouldering urn?
O when shall it dawn on the night of the grave?'
[586] Horace Walpole (_Letters_, vii. 338) mentions this book at some
length. On March 13, 1780, he wrote:--'Yesterday was published an
octavo, pretending to contain the correspondence of Hackman and Miss Ray
that he murdered.' See _ante_, iii. 383.
[587] Hawkins (_Life_, p. 547), recording how Johnson used to meet
Psalmanazar at an ale-house, says that Johnson one day 'remarked on the
human mind, that it had a necessary tendency to improvement, and that it
would frequently anticipate instruction. "Sir," said a stranger that
overheard him, "that I deny; I am a tailor, and have had many
apprentices, but never one that could make a coat till I had taken great
pains in teaching him."' See _ante_, iii. 443. Robert Hall was
influenced in his studies by 'his intimate association in mere childhood
with a tailor, one of his father's congregation, who was an acute
metaphysician.' Hall's _Works_, vi. 5.
[588] Johnson had never been in Grub-street. _Ante_, i. 296, note 2.
[589] The Honourable Horace Walpole, late Earl of Orford, thus bears
testimony to this gentleman's merit as a writer:--'Mr. Chambers's
_Treatise on Civil Architecture_ is the most sensible book, and the most
exempt from prejudices, that ever was written on that science.'--Preface
to _Anecdotes of Painting in England_. BOSWELL. Chambers was the
architect of Somerset House. See _ante_, p. 60, note 7.
[590] The introductory lines are these:--'It is difficult to avoid
praising too little or too much. The boundless panegyricks which have
been lavished upon the Chinese learning, policy, and arts, shew with
what power novelty attracts regard, and how naturally esteem swells into
admiration. I am far from desiring to be numbered among the exaggerators
of Chinese excellence. I consider them as great, or wise, only in
comparison with the nations that surround them; and have no intention to
place them in competition either with the antients or with the moderns
of this part of the world; yet they must be allowed to claim our notice
as a distinct and very singular race of men: as the inhabitants of a
region divided by its situation from all civilized countries, who have
formed their own manners, and invented their own arts, without the
assistance of example.' BOSWELL.
[591] The last execution at Tyburn was on Nov. 7, 1783, when one man was
hanged. The first at Newgate was on the following Dec. 9, when ten were
hanged. _Gent. Mag._ 1783, pp. 974, 1060.
[592] We may compare with this 'loose talk' Johnson's real opinion, as
set forth in _The Rambler_, No. 114, entitled:--_The necessity of
proportioning punishments to crimes_. He writes:--'The learned, the
judicious, the pious Boerhaave relates that he never saw a criminal
dragged to execution without asking himself, "Who knows whether this man
is not less culpable than me?" On the days when the prisons of this city
are emptied into the grave, let every spectator of this dreadful
procession put the same question to his own heart. Few among those that
crowd in thousands to the legal massacre, and look with carelessness,
perhaps with triumph, on the utmost exacerbations of human misery, would
then be able to return without horror and dejection.' He continues:--'It
may be observed that all but murderers have, at their last hour, the
common sensations of mankind pleading in their favour.... They who would
rejoice at the correction of a thief, are yet shocked at the thought of
destroying him. His crime shrinks to nothing compared with his misery,
and severity defeats itself by exciting pity.'
[593] Richardson, in his _Familiar Letters_, No. 160, makes a country
gentleman in town describe the procession of five criminals to Tyburn,
and their execution. He should have heard, he said, 'the exhortation
spoken by the bell-man from the wall of St. Sepulchre's church-yard;
but the noise of the officers and the mob was so great, and the silly
curiosity of people climbing into the cart to take leave of the
criminals made such a confused noise that I could not hear them. They
are as follow: "All good people pray heartily to God for these poor
sinners, who now are going to their deaths; for whom this great bell
doth toll. You that are condemned to die, repent with lamentable
tears.... Lord have mercy upon you! Christ have mercy upon you!" which
last words the bell-man repeats three times. All the way up Holborn the
crowd was so great, as at every twenty or thirty yards to obstruct the
passage; and wine, notwithstanding a late good order against that
practice, was brought the malefactors, who drank greedily of it. After
this the three thoughtless young men, who at first seemed not enough
concerned, grew most shamefully daring and wanton. They swore, laughed,
and talked obscenely. At the place of execution the scene grew still
more shocking; and the clergyman who attended was more the subject of
ridicule than of their serious attention. The psalm was sung amidst the
curses and quarrelling of hundreds of the most abandoned and profligate
of mankind. As soon as the poor creatures were half-dead, I was much
surprised to see the populace fall to haling and pulling the carcases
with so much earnestness as to occasion several warm rencounters and
broken heads. These, I was told, were the friends of the persons
executed, or such as for the sake of tumult chose to appear so; and some
persons sent by private surgeons to obtain bodies for dissection.' The
psalm is mentioned in a note on the line in _The Dunciad_, i. 4l, 'Hence
hymning Tyburn's elegiac lines:'--'It is an ancient English custom,'
says Pope, 'for the malefactors to sing a psalm at their execution
at Tyburn.'
[594] The rest of these miscellaneous sayings were first given in the
_Additions to Dr. Johnson's Life_ at the beginning of vol. I of the
second edition.
[595] Hume (_Auto_. p. 6) speaks of Hurd as attacking him 'with all the
illiberal petulance, arrogance, and scurrility which distinguish the
Warburtonian school.' 'Hurd,' writes Walpole, 'had acquired a great name
by several works of slender merit, was a gentle, plausible man,
affecting a singular decorum that endeared him highly to devout old
ladies.' _Journal of the Reign of George III_, ii. 50. He is best known
to the present generation by his impertinent notes on Addison's _Works_.
By reprinting them, Mr. Bohn did much to spoil what was otherwise an
excellent edition of that author. See _ante_, p. 47, note 2.
[596] The Rev. T. Twining, one of Dr. Burney's friends, wrote in
1779:--'You use a form of reference that I abominate, i.e. the latter,
the former. "As long as you have the use of your tongue and your pen,"
said Dr. Johnson to Dr. Burney, "never, Sir, be reduced to that shift."'
_Recreations and Studies of a Country Clergyman of the XVIIIth
Century_, p. 72.
[597] 'A shilling was now wanted for some purpose or other, and none of
them happened to have one; I begged that I might lend one. "Ay, do,"
said the Doctor, "I will borrow of you; authors are like privateers,
always fair game for one another."' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii. 212.
[598] See _ante_, i. 129, note 3.
[599] See _post_, June 3, 1784, where he uses almost the same words.
[600] What this period was Boswell seems to leave intentionally vague.
Johnson knew Lord Shelburne at least as early as 1778 (_ante_, iii.
265). He wrote to Dr. Taylor on July 22, 1782:--'Shelburne speaks of
Burke in private with great malignity.' _Notes and Queries_, 6th S. v.
462. The company commonly gathered at his house would have been
displeasing to Johnson. Priestley, who lived with Shelburne seven years,
says (_Auto_. p. 55) that a great part of the company he saw there was
like the French philosophers, unbelievers in Christianity, and even
professed atheists: men 'who had given no proper attention to
Christianity, and did not really know what it was.' Johnson was intimate
with Lord Shelburne's brother. _Ante_, ii. 282, note 3.
[601] Johnson being asked his opinion of this Essay, answered, 'Why,
Sir, we shall have the man come forth again; and as he has proved
Falstaff to be no coward, he may prove Iago to be a very good
character.' BOSWELL.
[602] A writer in the _European Magazine_, xxx. 160, says that Johnson
visited Lord Shelburne at Bowood. At dinner he repeated part of his
letter to Lord Chesterfield (_ante_, i. 261). A gentleman arrived late.
Shelburne, telling him what he had missed, went on:-'I dare say the
Doctor will be kind enough to give it to us again.' 'Indeed, my Lord, I
will not. I told the circumstance first for my own amusement, but I will
not be dragged in as story-teller to a company.' In an argument he used
some strong expressions, of which his opponent took no notice, Next
morning 'he went up to the gentleman with great good-nature, and said,
"Sir, I have found out upon reflection that I was both warm and wrong in
my argument with you last night; for the first of which I beg your
pardon, and for the second, I thank you for setting me right."' It is
clear that the second of these anecdotes is the same as that told by Mr.
Morgann of Johnson and himself, and that the scene has been wrongly
transferred from Wickham to Bowood. The same writer says that it was
between Derrick and Boyce--not Derrick and Smart--that Johnson, in the
story that follows, could not settle the precedency.
[603] See ante, i. 124, 394.
[604] See ante, i. 397.
[605] What the great TWALMLEY was so proud of having invented, was
neither more nor less than a kind of box-iron for smoothing
linen. BOSWELL.
[606]
'Hic manus ob patriam pugnando vulnera passi,
Quique sacerdotes casti, dum vita manebat,
Quique pii vates et Phoebo digna locuti,
Inventas aut qui vitam excoluere per artes.'
_Aeneid_, vi. 660.
'Lo, they who in their country's fight
sword-wounded bodies bore;
Lo, priests of holy life and chaste,
while they in life had part;
Lo, God-loved poets, men who spake
things worthy Phoebus' heart,
And they who bettered life on earth
by new-found mastery.'
MORRIS. Virgil, _Aeneids_, vi. 660. The great Twalmley might have
justified himself by _The Rambler_, No. 9:--'Every man, from the
highest to the lowest station, ought to warm his heart and animate his
endeavours with the hopes of being useful to the world, by advancing the
art which it is his lot to exercise; and for that end he must
necessarily consider the whole extent of its application, and the whole
weight of its importance.... Every man ought to endeavour at eminence,
not by pulling others down, but by raising himself, and enjoy the
pleasure of his own superiority, whether imaginary or real, without
interrupting others in the same felicity.' All this is what Twalmley
did. He adorned an art, he endeavoured at eminence, and he inoffensively
enjoyed the pleasure of his own superiority. He could also have defended
himself by the example of Aeneas, who, introducing himself, said:--
'Sum pius Aeneas .....
... fama super aethera notus.'
_Aeneid_, i. 378. I fear that Twalmley met with the neglect that so
commonly befalls inventors. In the _Gent. Mag_. 1783, p. 719, I find in
the list of 'B-nk-ts,' Josiah Twamley, the elder, of Warwick,
ironmonger.
[607] 'Sir, Hume is a Tory by chance, as being a Scotchman; but not upon
a principle of duty, for he has no principle. If he is anything, he is a
Hobbist.' Boswell's _Hebrides_, Sept. 30. Horace Walpole's opinion was
very different. 'Are not atheism and bigotry first cousins? Was not
Charles II. an atheist and a bigot? and does Mr. Hume pluck a stone from
a church but to raise an altar to tyranny?' _Letters_, v. 444. Hume
wrote in 1756:--'My views of _things_ are more conformable to Whig
principles; my representations of _persons_ to Tory prejudices.' J.H.
Burton's _Hume_, ii. 11. Hume's Toryism increased with years. He says in
his _Autobiography/_ (p. xi.) that all the alterations which he made in
the later editions of his _History of the Stuarts_, 'he made invariably
to the Tory side.' Dr. Burton gives instances of these; _Life of Hume_,
ii. 74. Hume wrote in 1763 that he was 'too much infected with the
plaguy prejudices of Whiggism when he began the work.' _Ib_. p. 144. In
1770 he wrote:--'I either soften or expunge many villainous, seditious
Whig strokes which had crept into it.' _Ib_. p. 434. This growing hatred
of Whiggism was, perhaps, due to pique. John Home, in his notes of
Hume's talk in the last weeks of his life, says: 'He recurred to a
subject not unfrequent with him--that is, the design to ruin him as an
author, by the people that were ministers at the first publication of
his _History_, and called themselves Whigs.' _Ib_. p. 500. As regards
America, Hume was with the Whigs, as Johnson had perhaps learnt from
their common friend, Mr. Strahan. 'He was,' says Dr. Burton, 'far more
tolerant of the sway of individuals over numbers, which he looked upon
as the means of preserving order and civilization, than of the
predominance of one territory over another, which he looked upon as
subjugation.' _Ib_. p. 477. Quite at the beginning of the struggle he
foretold that the Americans would not be subdued, unless they broke in
pieces among themselves. _Ib_. p. 482. He was not frightened by the
prospect of the loss of our supremacy. He wrote to Adam Smith:--'My
notion is that the matter is not so important as is commonly imagined.
Our navigation and general commerce may suffer more than our
manufactures.' _Ib_. p. 484. Johnson's charge against Hume that he had
no principle, is, no doubt, a gross one; yet Hume's advice to a
sceptical young clergyman, who had good hope of preferment, that he
should therefore continue in orders, was unprincipled enough. 'It is,'
he wrote, 'putting too great a respect on the vulgar and on their
superstitions to pique one's self on sincerity with regard to them. Did
ever one make it a point of honour to speak truth to children or madmen?
If the thing were worthy being treated gravely, I should tell him that
the Pythian oracle, with the approbation of Xenophon, advised every one
to worship the gods--[Greek: nomo poleos]. I wish it were still in my
power to be a hypocrite in this particular. The common duties of society
usually require it; and the ecclesiastical profession only adds a little
more to an innocent dissimulation, or rather simulation, without which
it is impossible to pass through the world.' _Ib/_. p. 187.
[608] Mrs. Piozzi (_Anec_. p. 48) says that Johnson told her that in
writing the story of Gelaleddin, the poor scholar (_Idler_, No. 75), who
thought to fight his way to fame by his learning and wit, 'he had his
own outset into life in his eye.' Gelaleddin describes how 'he was
sometimes admitted to the tables of the viziers, where he exerted his
wit and diffused his knowledge; but he observed that where, by endeavour
or accident he had remarkably excelled, he was seldom invited a second
time.' See _ante_, p. 116.
[609] See ante, p. 115.
[610] Bar. BOSWELL.
[611] Nard. BOSWELL.
[612] Barnard. BOSWELL.
[613] It was reviewed in the _Gent. Mag_. 1781, p. 282, where it is said
to have been written by Don Gabriel, third son of the King of Spain.
[614] Though 'you was' is very common in the authors of the last century
when one person was addressed, I doubt greatly whether Johnson ever so
expressed himself.
[615] See _ante_, i. 311.
[616] Horace Walpole (_Letters_ v. 85) says, 'Boswell, like Cambridge,
has a rage of knowing anybody that ever was talked of.' Miss Burney
records 'an old trick of Mr. Cambridge to his son George, when listening
to a dull story, in saying to the relator "Tell the rest of that to
George."' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii. 274. See _ante_, ii. 361.
[617] Virgil, _Eclogues_, i. 47.
[618] 'Mr. Johnson,' writes Mrs. Piozzi (_Anec_. p. 21), 'was
exceedingly disposed to the general indulgence of children, and was even
scrupulously and ceremoniously attentive not to offend them. He had
strongly persuaded himself of the difficulty people always find to erase
early impressions either of kindness or resentment.'
[619] _Ante_, ii.171, iv.75; also _post_, May 15, 1784.
[620] Johnson, on May 1, 1780, wrote of the exhibition dinner:--'The
apartments were truly very noble. The pictures, for the sake of a
sky-light, are at the top of the house; there we dined, and I sat over
against the Archbishop of York. See how I live when I am not under
petticoat government.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 111. It was Archbishop
Markham whom he met; he is mentioned by Boswell in his _Hebrides, post_,
v. 37. In spite of the 'elaboration of homage' Johnson could judge
freely of an archbishop. He described the Archbishop of Tuam as 'a man
coarse of voice and inelegant of language.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 300.
[621] By Lord Perceval, afterwards Earl of Egmont. He carried, writes
Horace Walpole (_Letters_, ii. 144), 'the Westminster election at the
end of my father's ministry, which he amply described in the history of
his own family, a genealogical work called the _History of the House of
Yvery_, a work which cost him three thousand pounds; and which was so
ridiculous, that he has since tried to suppress all the copies. It
concluded with the description of the Westminster election, in these or
some such words:--"And here let us leave this young nobleman struggling
for the dying liberties of his country."'
[622] Five days earlier Johnson made the following entry in his
Diary:--'1783, April 5. I took leave of Mrs. Thrale. I was much moved. I
had some expostulations with her. She said that she was likewise
affected. I commended the Thrales with great good-will to God; may my
petitions have been heard.' Hawkins's _Life_, p. 553. This was not 'a
formal taking of leave,' as Hawkins says. She was going to Bath (Mme.
D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii. 264). On May-day he wrote to her on the death of
one of her little girls:--'I loved her, for she was Thrale's and yours,
and, by her dear father's appointment, in some sort mine: I love you
all, and therefore cannot without regret see the phalanx broken, and
reflect that you and my other dear girls are deprived of one that was
born your friend. To such friends every one that has them has recourse
at last, when it is discovered and discovered it seldom fails to be,
that the fortuitous friendships of inclination or vanity are at the
mercy of a thousand accidents.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 255. He was sadly
thinking how her friendship for him was rapidly passing away.
[623] Johnson modestly ended his account of the tour by saying:--'I
cannot but be conscious that my thoughts on national manners are the
thoughts of one who has seen but little.' _Works_, ix. 161. See
Boswell's _Hebrides_, Nov. 22.
[624] See _ib_. Oct. 21.
[625] She says that he was 'the genuine author of the first volume. An
ingenious physician,' she continues, 'with the assistance of several
others, continued the work until the eighth volume.' Mrs. Manley's
_History of her own Life and Times_, p. 15--a gross, worthless book.
Swift satirised her in _Corinna, a Ballad_. Swift's _Works_ (1803),
x. 94.
[626] The real authour was I. P. Marana, a Genoese, who died at Paris in
1693. John Dunton in his _Life_ says, that Mr. _William Bradshaw_
received from Dr. Midgeley forty shillings a sheet for writing part of
the _Turkish Spy_; but I do not find that he any where mentions _Sault_
as engaged in that work. MALONE.
[627] See _ante_, ii. 355, iii. 46, and iv. 139.
[628] This was in June, 1783, and I find in Mr. Windham's private diary
(which it seems this conversation induced him to keep) the following
memoranda of Dr. Johnson's advice: 'I have no great timidity in my own
disposition, and am no encourager of it in others. Never be afraid to
think yourself fit for any thing for which your friends think you fit.
_You will become an able negotiator--a very pretty rascal_. No one in
Ireland wears even the mask of incorruption; no one professes to do for
sixpence what he can get a shilling for doing. Set sail, and see where
the winds and the waves will carry you. Every day will improve another.
_Dies diem docet_, by observing at night where you failed in the day,
and by resolving to fail so no more.' CROKER. The Whigs thought he made
'a very pretty rascal' in a very different way. On his opposition to
Whitbread's bill for establishing parochial schools, Romilly wrote
(_Life_, ii. 2l6), 'that a man so enlightened as Windham should take the
same side (which he has done most earnestly) would excite great
astonishment, if one did not recollect his eager opposition a few months
ago to the abolition of the slave trade.' He was also 'most strenuous in
opposition' to Romilly's bill for repealing the act which made it a
capital offence to steal to the amount of forty shillings in a
dwelling-house, _Ib_. p. 316.