CHAPTER XV

THE HOME OF DR. JOHNSON

Lichfield, Staffordshire, July 31, 1890.--To a man of letters there is no name in the long annals of English literature more interesting and significant than the name of Samuel Johnson. It has been truly said that no other man was ever subjected to such a light as Boswell threw upon Johnson, and that few other men could have endured it so well. He was in many ways noble, but of all men of letters he is especially noble as the champion of literature. He vindicated the profession of letters. He lived by his pen, and he taught the great world, once for all, that it is honourable so to live. That lesson was needed in the England of his period; and from that period onward the literary vocation has steadily been held in higher esteem than it enjoyed up to that time. The reader will not be surprised that one of the humblest of his followers should linger for a while in the ancient town that is glorified by association with his illustrious name, or should write a word of fealty and homage in the birthplace of Dr. Johnson.

Lichfield is a cluster of rather dingy streets and of red-brick and stucco buildings, lying in a vale, a little northward from Birmingham, diversified by a couple of artificial lakes and glorified by one of the loveliest churches in Europe. Without its church the town would be nothing. Lichfield cathedral, although an ancient structure,--dating back, indeed, to the early part of the twelfth century,--has been so sorely battered, and so considerably "restored," that it presents the aspect of a building almost modern. The denotements of antiquity, however, are not entirely absent from it, and it is not less venerable than majestic. No one of the cathedrals of England presents a more beautiful front. The multitudinous statues of saints and kings that are upon it create an impression of royal opulence. The carving upon the recesses of the great doorways on the north and west is of astonishing variety and loveliness. The massive doors of dark oak, fretted with ironwork of rare delicacy, are impressive and are exceptionally suitable for such an edifice. Seven of the large gothic windows in the chancel are filled with genuine old glass,--not, indeed, the glass they originally contained, for that was smashed by the Puritan fanatics, but a great quantity [no less than at least three hundred and forty pieces, each about twenty-two inches square], made in Germany, in the early part of the sixteenth century, when the art of staining glass was at its summit of skill. This treasure was given to the cathedral by a liberal friend, Sir Brooke Boothby, who had obtained it by purchase, in 1802, from the dissolved Abbey of Herckenrode. No such colour as that old glass presents can be seen in the glass that is manufactured now. It is imitated indeed, but it does not last. The subjects portrayed in those sumptuous windows are mostly scriptural, but the centre window on the north side of the chancel is devoted to portraits of noblemen, one of them being Errard de la Marck, who was enthroned Bishop of Liège in 1505, and who, toward the end of his stormy life, adopted the old Roman motto, comprehensive and final, which, a little garbled, appears in the glass beneath his heraldic arms:

"Decipimus votis; et tempore fallimur; Et Mors deridet curas; anxia vita nihil."

The father of the illustrious Joseph Addison was Dean of Lichfield from 1688 to 1703, and his remains are buried in the ground, near the west door of the church. The stately Latin epitaph was written by his son. This and several other epitaphs here attract the interested attention of literary students. A tablet on the north wall, in the porch, commemorates the courage and sagacity of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, who introduced into England the practice of inoculation for the small-pox. Anna Seward, the poet, who died in 1809, aged sixty-six, and who was one of the friends of Dr. Johnson, was buried and is commemorated here, and the fact that she placed a tablet here, in memory of her father, is celebrated in sixteen eloquent and felicitous lines by Sir Walter Scott. The father was a canon of Lichfield, and died in 1790. The reader of Boswell will not fail to remark the epitaph on Gilbert Walmesley, once registrar of the ecclesiastical court of Lichfield, and one of Dr. Johnson's especial friends. Of Chappel Woodhouse it is significantly said, upon his memorial stone, that he was "lamented most by those who knew him best." Here the pilgrim sees two of the best works of Sir Francis Chantrey,--one called The Sleeping Children, erected in 1817, in memory of two young daughters of the Rev. William Robinson; the other a kneeling figure of Bishop Ryder, who died in 1836. The former was one of the earliest triumphs of Chantrey,--an exquisite semblance of innocence and heavenly purity,[46]--and the latter was his last. Near by is placed one of the most sumptuous monuments in England, a recumbent statue, done by the master-hand of Watts, the painter, representing Bishop Lonsdale, who died in 1867. This figure, in which the modelling is very beautiful and expressive, rests upon a bed of marble and alabaster. In Chantrey's statue of Bishop Ryder, which seems no effigy but indeed the living man, there is marvellous perfection of drapery,--the marble having the effect of flowing silk. Here also, in the south transept, is the urn of the Gastrells, formerly of Stratford-upon-Avon, to whom was due the destruction [1759] of the house of New Place in which Shakespeare died. No mention of the Rev. Gastrell occurs in the epitaph, but copious eulogium is lavished on his widow, both in verse and prose, and she must indeed have been a good woman, if the line is true which describes her as "A friend to want when each false friend withdrew." Her chief title to remembrance, however, like that of her husband, is an unhallowed association with one of the most sacred of literary shrines. In 1776 Johnson, accompanied by Boswell, visited Lichfield, and Boswell records that they dined with Mrs. Gastrell and her sister Mrs. Aston. The Rev. Gastrell was then dead. "I was not informed till afterward," says Boswell, "that Mrs. Gastrell's husband was the clergyman who, while he lived at Stratford-upon-Avon, with Gothic barbarity cut down Shakespeare's mulberry-tree, and as Dr. Johnson told me, did it to vex his neighbours. His lady, I have reason to believe, on the same authority, participated in the guilt of what the enthusiasts of our immortal bard deem almost a species of sacrilege." The destruction of the house followed close upon that of the tree, and to both their deaths the lady was doubtless accessory.

Upon the ledge of a casement on the east side of the chancel, separated by the central lancet of a threefold window, stand the marble busts of Samuel Johnson and David Garrick. Side by side they went through life; side by side their ashes repose in the great abbey at Westminster; and side by side they are commemorated here. Both the busts were made by Westmacott, and obviously each is a portrait. The head of Johnson appears without his customary wig. The colossal individuality of the man plainly declares itself, in form and pose, in every line of the eloquent face, and in the superb dignity of the figure and the action. This work was based on a cast taken after death, and this undoubtedly is Johnson's self. The head is massive yet graceful, denoting a compact brain and great natural refinement of intellect. The brow is indicative of uncommon sweetness. The eyes are finely shaped. The nose is prominent, long, and slightly aquiline, with wide and sensitive nostrils. The mouth is large, and the lips are slightly parted, as if in speech. Prodigious perceptive faculties are shown in the sculpture of the forehead,--a feature that is characteristic, in even a greater degree, of the bust of Garrick. The total expression of the countenance is benignant, yet troubled and rueful. It is a thoughtful and venerable face, and yet it is the passionate face of a man who has passed through many storms of self-conflict and been much ravaged by spiritual pain. The face of Garrick, on the contrary, is eager, animated, triumphant, happy, showing a nature of absolute simplicity, a sanguine temperament, and a mind that tempests may have ruffled but never convulsed. Garrick kept his "storm and stress" for his tragic performances; there was no particle of it in his personal experience. It was good to see those old friends thus associated in the beautiful church that they knew and loved in the sweet days when their friendship had just begun and their labours and their honours were all before them. I placed myself where, during the service, I could look upon both the busts at once; and presently, in the deathlike silence, after the last response of evensong had died away, I could well believe that those familiar figures were kneeling beside me, as so often they must have knelt beneath this glorious and venerable roof: and for one worshipper the beams of the westering sun, that made a solemn splendour through the church, illumined visions no mortal eyes could see.

Beneath the bust of Johnson, upon a stone slab affixed to the wall, appears this inscription:

The friends of SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D., a native of Lichfield, erected this monument as a tribute of respect to the memory of a man of extensive learning, a distinguished moral writer and a sincere Christian. He died the 13th of December, 1784, aged 75 years.

A similar stone beneath the bust of Garrick is inscribed as follows:

Eva Maria, relict of DAVID GARRICK, Esq., caused this monument to be erected to the memory of her beloved husband, who died the 20th of January 1779, aged 63 years. He had not only the amiable qualities of private life, but such astonishing dramatick talents as too well verified the observation of his friend: "His death eclipsed the gayety of nations and impoverished the publick stock of harmless pleasure."

This "observation" is the well-known eulogium of Johnson, who, however much he may have growled about Garrick, always loved him and deeply mourned for him. These memorials of an author and an actor are not rendered the more impressive by being surmounted, as at present they are, in Lichfield cathedral, with old battle-flags,--commemorative souvenirs of the 80th Regiment, Staffordshire volunteers,--honourable and interesting relics in their place, but inappropriate to the effigies of Johnson and Garrick.

The house in which Johnson was born stands at the corner of Market street and Breadmarket street, facing the little market-place of Lichfield. It is an antiquated building, three stories in height, having a long, peaked roof. The lower story is recessed, so that the entrance is sheltered by a pent. Its two doors,--for the structure now consists of two tenements,--are approached by low stone steps, guarded by an iron rail. There are ten windows, five in each row, in the front of the upper stories. The pent-roof is supported by three sturdy pillars. The house has a front of stucco. A bill in one of the lower windows certifies that now [1890], this house is "To Let." Here old Michael Johnson kept his bookshop, in the days of good Queen Anne, and from this door young Samuel Johnson went forth to his school and his play. The whole various, pathetic, impressive story of his long, laborious, sturdy, beneficent life drifts through your mind as you stand at that threshold and conjure up the pictures of the past. Opposite to the house, and facing it, is the statue of Johnson, presented to Lichfield in 1838 by James Thomas Law, then Chancellor of the diocese. On the sides of its massive pedestal are sculptures, showing first the boy, borne on his father's shoulders, listening to the preaching of Dr. Sacheverell; then the youth, victorious in school, carried aloft in triumph by his admiring comrades; and, finally, the renowned scholar and author, in the meridian of his greatness, standing bareheaded in the market-place of Uttoxeter, doing penance for his undutiful refusal, when a lad, to relieve his weary, infirm father, in the work of tending the bookstall at that place. Every one knows that touching story, and no one who thinks of it when standing here will gaze with any feeling but that of reverence, commingled with the wish to lead a true and simple life, upon the noble, thoughtful face and figure of the great moralist, who now seems to look down with benediction upon the scenes of his innocent and happy youth. The statue, which is in striking contrast with the humble birthplace, points the expressive moral of a splendid career. No tablet has yet been placed on the house in which Johnson was born. Perhaps it is not needed. Yet surely this place, if any place on earth, ought to be preserved and protected as a literary shrine.[47] Johnson was not a great creative poet; neither a Shakespeare, a Dryden, a Byron, nor a Tennyson; but he was one of the most massive and majestic characters in English literature. A superb example of self-conquest and moral supremacy, a mine of extensive and diversified learning, an intellect remarkable for deep penetration and broad and generally sure grasp of the greatest subjects, he exerted, as few men have ever exerted, the original, elemental force of genius; and his immortal legacy to his fellow-men was an abiding influence for good. The world is better and happier because of him, and because of the many earnest characters and honest lives that his example has inspired; and this cradle of greatness ought to be saved and marked for every succeeding generation as long as time endures.

One of the interesting features of Lichfield is an inscription that vividly recalls the ancient strife of Roundhead and Cavalier, two centuries and a half ago. This is found upon a stone scutcheon, set in the wall over the door of the house that is No. 24 Dam street, and these are its words: "March 2d, 1643, Lord Brooke, a General of the Parliament Forces preparing to Besiege the Close of Lichfield, then garrisoned For King Charles the First, Received his deathwound on the spot Beneath this Inscription, By a shot in the forehead from Mr. Dyott, a gentleman who had placed himself on the Battlements of the great steeple, to annoy the Besiegers." One of them he must have "annoyed" seriously. It was "a long shot, Sir Lucius," for, standing on the place of that catastrophe and looking up to "the battlements of the great steeple," it seemed to have covered a distance of nearly four hundred feet. Other relics of those Roundhead wars were shown in the cathedral, in an ancient room now used for the bishop's consistory court,--these being two cannon-balls (fourteen-pounders), and the ragged and dusty fragments of a shell, that were dug out of the ground near the church a few years ago. Many of these practical tokens of Puritan zeal have been discovered. Lichfield cathedral close, in the time of Bishop Walter de Langton, who died in 1321, was surrounded with a wall and fosse, and thereafter, whenever the wars came, it was used as a fortification. In the Stuart times it was often besieged. Sir John Gell succeeded Lord Brooke, when the latter had been shot by Mr. Dyott,--who is said to have been "deaf and dumb," but who certainly was not blind. The close was surrendered on March 5, 1643, and thereupon the Parliamentary victors, according to their ruthless and brutal custom, straightway ravaged the church, tearing the brasses from the tombs, breaking the effigies, and utterly despoiling beauty which it had taken generations of pious zeal and loving devotion to create. The great spire was battered down by those vandals, and in falling it wrecked the chapter-house. The noble church, indeed, was made a ruin, and so it remained till 1661, when its munificent benefactor, Bishop Hackett, began its restoration, now happily almost complete. Prince Rupert captured Lichfield close, for the king, in April, 1643, and General Lothian recovered it for the Parliament, in the summer of 1646, after which time it was completely dismantled. Charles the First came to this place after the fatal battle of Naseby, and sad enough that picturesque, vacillating, shortsighted, beatific aristocrat must have been, gazing over the green fields of Lichfield, to know,--as surely even he must then have known,--that his cause was doomed, if not entirely lost.

It will not take you long to traverse Lichfield, and you may ramble all around it through little green lanes between hedgerows. This you will do if you are wise, for the walk, especially at evening, is peaceful and lovely. The wanderer never gets far away from the cathedral. Those three superb spires steadily dominate the scene, and each new view of them seems fairer than the last. All around this little city the fields are richly green, and many trees diversify the prospect. Pausing to rest awhile in the mouldering graveyard of old St. Chad's, I saw the rooks flocking homeward to the great tree-tops not far away, and heard their many querulous, sagacious, humorous croakings, while over the distance, borne upon the mild and fragrant evening breeze, floated the solemn note of a warning bell from the minster tower, as the shadows deepened and the night came down. Scenes like this sink deep into the heart, and memory keeps them forever.