Chapter 9

[590] Johnson wrote of Milton:--'I cannot but conceive him calm and confident, little disappointed, not at all dejected, relying on his own merit with steady consciousness, and waiting without impatience the vicissitudes of opinion, and the impartiality of a future generation.' Johnson's _Works_, vii. 108.

[591]

'Genus irritabile vatum.' 'The fretful tribe of rival poets.'

Francis, _Horace_, Ep. ii. 2. 102.

[592] This deference he enforces in many passages in his writings; as for instance:--'Dryden might have observed, that what is good only because it pleases, cannot be pronounced good till it has been found to please.' Johnson's _Works_, vii. 252. 'The authority of Addison is great; yet the voice of the people, when to please the people is the purpose, deserves regard.' _Ib_. 376. 'About things on which the public thinks long, it commonly attains to think right.' _Ib_. 456. 'These apologies are always useless: "de gustibus non est disputandum;" men may be convinced, but they cannot be pleased against their will.' _Ib_. viii. 26. 'Of things that terminate in human life, the world is the proper judge; to despise its sentence, if it were possible, is not just; and if it were just, is not possible.' _Ib_. viii. 316. Lord Chesterfield in writing to his son about his first appearance in the world said, 'You will be tried and judged there, not as a boy, but as a man; and from that moment _there is no appeal for character_.' Lord Chesterfield's _Letters_, iii. 324. Addison in the _Guardian_, No. 98, had said that 'men of the best sense are always diffident of their private judgment, till it receives a sanction from the public. _Provoco ad populum_, I appeal to the people, was the usual saying of a very excellent dramatic poet, when he had any disputes with particular persons about the justness and regularity of his productions.' See _post_, March 23, 1783.

[593] 'Were I,' he said, 'to wear a laced or embroidered waistcoat, it should be very rich. I had once a very rich laced waistcoat, which I wore the first night of my tragedy.' Boswell's _Hebrides_, Oct. 27, 1773.

[594] 'Topham Beauclerc used to give a pleasant description of this greenroom finery, as related by the author himself: 'But,' said Johnson, with great gravity, 'I soon laid aside my gold-laced hat, lest it should make me proud.' Murphy's _Johnson_, p. 52. In _The Idler_ (No. 62) we have an account of a man who had longed to 'issue forth in all the splendour of embroidery.' When his fine clothes were brought, 'I felt myself obstructed,' he wrote, 'in the common intercourse of civility by an uneasy consciousness of my new appearance; as I thought myself more observed, I was more anxious about my mien and behaviour; and the mien which if formed by care is commonly ridiculous.'

[595] See _ante_, p. 167.

[596] See _post_, 1780, in Mr. Langton's _Collection_.

[597] _The Tatler_ came to an end on Jan 2, 1710-1; the first series of _The Spectator_ on Dec 6, 1712; and the second series of _The Spectator_ on December 20, 1714.

[598] 'Two new designs have appeared about the middle of this month [March, 1750], one entitled, _The Tatler Revived; or The Christian Philosopher and Politician_, half a sheet, price 2_d_. (stamped); the other, _The Rambler_, three half sheets (un-stamped); price 2_d_.' _Gent. Mag_. xx. 126.

[599] Pope's _Essay on Man_, ii. 10.

[600] See _post_, under Oct. 12, 1779.

[601] I have heard Dr. Warton mention, that he was at Mr. Robert Dodsley's with the late Mr. Moore, and several of his friends, considering what should be the name of the periodical paper which Moore had undertaken. Garrick proposed _The Sallad_, which, by a curious coincidence, was afterwards applied to himself by Goldsmith:

'Our Garrick's a sallad, for in him we see Oil, vinegar, sugar, and saltness agree!'

[_Retaliation_, line II.]

At last, the company having separated, without any thing of which they approved having been offered, Dodsley himself thought of _The World_. BOSWELL.

[602] In the original MS. 'in this _my_ undertaking,' and below, 'the salvation _both_ of myself and others.'

[603] Prayers and Meditations, p. 9. BOSWELL.

[604] In the original folio edition of the _Rambler_ the concluding paper is dated Saturday, March 17. But Saturday was in fact March 14. This circumstance is worth notice, for Mrs. Johnson died on the 17th. MALONE.

[605] _Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides_, 3d edit. p. 28. [Aug. 16, 1773]. BOSWELL.

[606] 'Gray had a notion not very peculiar, that he could not write but at certain times, or at happy moments; a fantastic foppery, to which my kindness for a man of learning and virtue wishes him to have been superior.' Johnson's _Works_, viii. 482. See _post_, under April 15, 1758.

[607] Her correspondence with Richardson and Mrs. Carter was published in 1807.

[608] The correspondence between her and Mrs. Carter was published in 1808.

[609] Dr. Birch says:--'The proprietor of the _Rambler_, Cave, told me that copy was seldom sent to the press till late in the night before the day of publication,' Croker's _Boswell_, p. 121, note. See _post_, April 12, 1776, and beginning of 1781.

Johnson carefully revised the _Ramblers_ for the collected edition. The editor of the Oxford edition of Johnson's _Works_ states (ii. x), that 'the alterations exceeded six thousand.' The following passage from the last number affords a good instance of this revision.

_First edition_.

'I have never complied with temporary curiosity, nor furnished my readers with abilities to discuss the topic of the day; I have seldom exemplified my assertions by living characters; from my papers therefore no man could hope either censures of his enemies or praises of himself, and they only could be expected to peruse them, whose passions left them leisure for the contemplation of abstracted truth, and whom virtue could please by her native dignity without the assistance of modish ornaments.' _Gent. Mag_. xxii. 117.

_Revised edition_.

'I have never complied with temporary curiosity, nor enabled my readers to discuss the topic of the day; I have rarely exemplified my assertions by living characters; in my papers no man could look for censures of his enemies, or praises of himself; and they only were expected to peruse them, whose passions left them leisure for abstracted truth, and whom virtue could please by its naked dignity.' Johnson's _Works_, iii. 462.

[610] 'Such relicks [Milton's early manuscripts] shew how excellence is acquired; what we hope ever to do with ease, we must learn first to do with diligence.' Johnson's _Works_, vii. 119.

[611] Of the first 52 _Ramblers_ 49 were wholly by Johnson; of the last 156, 154. He seems to say that in the first 49, 17 were written from notes, and in the last 154 only 13.

[612] No. 46.

[613] Hawkins's _Life of Johnson_, p. 268 [p. 265]. BOSWELL.

[614] 'The sly shadow steals away upon the dial, and the quickest eye can distinguish no more than that it is gone.' Glanville, quoted in Johnson's _Dictionary_.

[615] This most beautiful image of the enchanting delusion of youthful prospect has not been used in any of Johnson's essays. BOSWELL.

[616] From Horace (_Ars Poet_. 1. 175) he takes his motto for the number:--

'Multa ferunt anni venientes commoda secum, Multa recedentes adimunt.' The blessings flowing in with life's full tide Down with our ebb of life decreasing glide.'

FRANCIS.

[617] Lib. xii. 96 [95]. 'In Tuccam aemulum omnium suorum studiorum.' MALONE.

[618] 'There never appear,' says Swift, 'more than five or six men of genius in an age; but if they were united, the world could not stand before them.' Johnson's _Works_, iv. 18.

[619] In the first edition this is printed [Greek: o philoi on philos]; in the second, [Greek: o philoi on philos]; in the 'Corrections' to the second, we find 'for [Greek: o] read [Greek: oi];' in the third it is printed as above. In three editions we have therefore five readings of the first word. See _post_, April 15, 1778, where Johnson says:

'An old Greek said, "He that has friends has no friend,"' and April 24, 1779, where he says: 'Garrick had friends but no friend.'

[620]

'gravesque Principum amicitias.' 'And fatal friendships of the guilty great.'

FRANCIS, Horace, _Odes_, ii. 1. 4.

[621] 3 _Post_, under Jan. 1, 1753.

[622] Sir John Hawkins has selected from this little collection of materials, what he calls the 'Rudiments of two of the papers of the _Rambler_.' But he has not been able to read the manuscript distinctly. Thus he writes, p. 266, 'Sailor's fate any mansion;' whereas the original is 'Sailor's life my aversion.' He has also transcribed the unappropriated hints on _Writers for bread_, in which he decyphers these notable passages, one in Latin, _fatui non famæ_, instead of _fami non famæ_; Johnson having in his mind what Thuanus says of the learned German antiquary and linguist, Xylander, who, he tells us, lived in such poverty, that he was supposed _fami non famæ scribere_; and another in French, _Degente de fate [fatu] et affamé a'argent_, instead of _Dégouté de fame_, (an old word for _renommée_) _et affamé d'argent_. The manuscript being written in an exceedingly small hand, is indeed very hard to read; but it would have been better to have left blanks than to write nonsense. BOSWELL.

[623] When we know that of the 208 _Ramblers_ all but five were written by Johnson, it is amusing to read a passage in one of Miss Talbot's letters to Mrs. Carter, dated Oct. 20, 1750:--'Mr. Johnson would, I fear, be mortified to hear that people know a paper of his own by the sure mark of somewhat a little excessive, a little exaggerated in the expression.' _Carter Corres_. i. 357.

[624] The _Ramblers_ certainly were little noticed at first. Smart, the poet, first mentioned them to me as excellent papers, before I had heard any one else speak of them. When I went into Norfolk, in the autumn of 1751, I found but one person, (the Rev. Mr. Squires, a man of learning, and a general purchaser of new books,) who knew anything of them. Before I left Norfolk in the year 1760, the _Ramblers_ were in high favour among persons of learning and good taste. Others there were, devoid of both, who said that the _hard words_ in the _Rambler_ were used by the authour to render his _Dictionary_ indispensably necessary. BURNEY. We have notices of the _Rambler_ in the _Carter Corres_:--'May 28, 1750. The author ought to be cautioned not to use over many hard words. In yesterday's paper (a very pretty one indeed) we had _equiponderant, and another so hard I cannot remember it [adscititious], both in one sentence.' 'Dec. 17, 1750:--Mr. Cave complains of him for not admitting correspondents; this does mischief. In the main I think he is to be applauded for it. But why then does he not write now and then on the living manners of the times?' In writing on April 22, 1752, just after the _Rambler_ had come to an end, Miss Talbot says:--'Indeed 'tis a sad thing that such a paper should have met with discouragement from wise and learned and good people too. Many are the disputes it has cost me, and not once did I come off triumphant.' Mrs. Carter replied:--'Many a battle have I too fought for him in the country, out with little success.' Murphy says:--'of this excellent production the number sold on each day did not amount to five hundred; of course the bookseller, who paid the author four guineas a week, did not carry on a successful trade.' Murphy's _Johnson_, p. 59.

[625] Richardson wrote to Cave on Aug. 9, 1750, after forty-one numbers had appeared:--'I hope the world tastes them; for its own sake I hope the world tastes them. The author I can only guess at. There is but one man, I think, that could write them.' _Rich. Corres_, i. 165. Cave replied:--'Mr. Johnson is the _Great Rambler_, being, as you observe, the only man who can furnish two such papers in a week, besides his other great business.' He mentioned the recommendation it received from high quarters, and continued:--'Notwithstanding, whether the price of two-pence, or the unfavourable season of their first publication hinders the demand, no boast can be made of it.' Johnson had not wished his name to be known. Cave says that 'Mr. Carrick and others, who knew the author's powers and style from the first, unadvisedly asserting their suspicions, overturned the scheme of secrecy.' _Ib_. pp. 168-170.

[626] Horace Walpole, while justifying George II. against 'bookish men who have censured his neglect of literature,' says:--'In truth, I believe King George would have preferred a guinea to a composition as perfect as _Alexander's Feast.' Reign of George II_, iii. 304.

[627] 'Dr. Johnson said to an acquaintance of mine, "My other works are wine and water; but my _Rambler_ is pure wine."' Rogers's _Table Talk_, p. 10.

[628] See _post_, April 5, 1772; April 19, 1773; and April 9, 1778.

[629] It was executed in the printing-office of Sands, Murray, and Cochran, with uncommon elegance, upon writing-paper, of a duodecimo size, and with the greatest correctness; and Mr. Elphinston enriched it with translations of the mottos. When completed, it made eight handsome volumes. It is, unquestionably, the most accurate and beautiful edition of this work; and there being but a small impression, it is now become scarce, and sells at a very high price. BOSWELL.

[630] Mr. Thomas Ruddiman, the learned grammarian of Scotland, well known for his various excellent works, and for his accurate editions of several authours. He was also a man of a most worthy private character. His zeal for the Royal House of Stuart did not render him less estimable in Dr. Johnson's eye. BOSWELL.

[631] In the _Gent. Mag_. for Sept. 1750, and for Oct. 1752, translations of many of the mottoes were given; but in each number there are several of Elphinston's. Johnson seems to speak of only one.

[632] Writing to Miss Porter on July 12, 1749, he said:--'I was afraid your letter had brought me ill news of my mother, whose death is one of the few calamities on which I think with terror.' Crokers _Boswell_, p. 62.

[633] Mr. Strahan was Elphinston's brother-in-law. _Post_, April 9, 1778.

[634] In the _Gent. Mag_. for January, 1752, in the list of books published is:--'A correct and beautiful edition of the Rambler in 4 volumes, in 12mo. Price 12s.' The _Rambler_ was not concluded till the following March. The remaining two volumes were published in July. _Gent. Mag_. xxii. 338.

[635] According to Hawkins (_Life_, P. 269) each edition consisted of 1250 copies.

[636] No. 55 [59.]. BOSWELL.

[637] Miss Burney records in her Diary that one day at Streatham, while she and Mrs. Thrale 'were reading this Rambler, Dr. Johnson came in. We told him what we were about. "Ah, madam!" cried he, "Goldsmith was not scrupulous; but he would have been a great man had he known the real value of his own internal resources."' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, i. 83. See _post_, beginning of 1768.

[638] It is possible that Mrs. Hardcastle's drive in _She Stoops to Conquer_ was suggested by the _Rambler_, No. 34. In it a young gentleman describes a lady's terror on a coach journey. 'Our whole conversation passed in dangers, and cares, and fears, and consolations, and stories of ladies dragged in the mire, forced to spend all the night on a heath, drowned in rivers, or burnt with lightning.... We had now a new scene of terror, every man we saw was a robber, and we were ordered sometimes to drive hard, lest a traveller whom we saw behind should overtake us; and sometimes to stop, lest we should come up to him who was passing before us. She alarmed many an honest man by begging him to spare her life as he passed by the coach.'

[639] Dr. Johnson was gratified by seeing this selection, and wrote to Mr. Kearsley, bookseller in Fleet-Street, the following note:--

'Mr. Johnson sends compliments to Mr. Kearsley, and begs the favour of seeing him as soon as he can. Mr. Kearsley is desired to bring with him the last edition of what he has honoured with the name of BEAUTIES. May 20, 1782.' BOSWELL. The correspondence, _post_, May 15, 1782, shews that Johnson sent for this book, not because he was gratified, but because he was accused, on the strength of one of the _Beauties_, of recommending suicide. On that day, being in the country, he wrote: 'I never saw the book but by casual inspection, and considered myself as utterly disengaged from its consequences.' He adds:--'I hope some time in the next week to have all rectified.' The letter of May 20 shews that on his return to town he lost little time, if any, in sending for Kearsley.

[640] See _post_, April 12, 1781.

[641] Ecclesiastes vii. 4.

[642] In the original '_separated sooner_ than subdued.' Johnson acted up to what he said. When he was close on his end, 'all who saw him beheld and acknowledged the _invictum animum Catonis_ ... Talking of his illness he said:--"I will be conquered; I will not capitulate."' See _post_, Oct. 1784.

[643] In the _Spectator_, No. 568, Addison tells of a village in which 'there arose a current report that somebody had written a book against the 'squire and the whole parish.' The book was _The Whole Duty of Man_.

[644] 'The character of Prospero was, beyond all question, occasioned by Garrick's ostentatious display of furniture and Dresden china.' Murphy's _Johnson_, p. 144. If Garrick was aimed at, it is surprising that the severity of the satire did not bring to an end, not only all friendship, but even any acquaintance between the two men. The writer describes how he and Prospero had set out in the world together, and how for a long time they had assisted each other, till his friend had been lately raised to wealth by a lucky project. 'I felt at his sudden shoot of success an honest and disinterested joy.' Prospero reproached him with his neglect to visit him at his new house. When however he went to see him, he found that his friend's impatience 'arose not from any desire to communicate his happiness, but to enjoy his superiority.' He was kept waiting at the door, and when at length he was shewn up stairs, he found the staircase carefully secured by mats from the pollution of his feet. Prospero led him into a backroom, where he told him he always breakfasted when he had not great company. After the visitor had endured one act of insolence after another, he says:--'I left him without any intention of seeing him again, unless some misfortune should restore his understanding.' _Rambler_, No. 200. See _post_, May 15, 1776, where Johnson, speaking of the charge of meanness brought against Garrick, said, 'he might have been much better attacked for living with more splendour than is suitable to a player.'

[645] In C. C. Greville's _Journal_ (ii. 316) we have an instance how stories about Johnson grew. He writes:--'Lord Holland told some stories of Johnson and Garrick which he had heard from Kemble.... When Garrick was in the zenith of his popularity, and grown rich, and lived with the great, and while Johnson was yet obscure, the Doctor used to drink tea with him, and he would say, "Davy, I do not envy you your money nor your fine acquaintance, but I envy you your power of drinking such tea as this." "Yes," said Garrick, "it is very good tea, but it is not my best, nor that which I give to my Lord this and Sir somebody t'other."' There can be little doubt that the whole story is founded on the following passage in the character of Prospero: 'Breakfast was at last set, and, as I was not willing to indulge the peevishness that began to seize me, I commended the tea. Prospero then told me that another time I should taste his finest sort, but that he had only a very small quantity remaining, and reserved it for those whom he thought himself obliged to treat with particular respect.' See _post_, April 10, 1778, where Johnson maintained that Garrick bore his good-fortune with modesty.

[646] No 98.

[647] Yet his style did not escape the harmless shafts of pleasant humour; for the ingenious Bonnell Thornton published a mock Rambler in the _Drury-lane Journal_. BOSWELL. Murphy (_Life_, p. 157), criticising the above quotation from Johnson, says:--'He forgot the observation of Dryden: "If too many foreign words are poured in upon us, it looks as if they were designed, not to assist the natives, but to conquer them."'

[648] _Idler_, No. 70. BOSWELL. In the same number Johnson writes:--'Few faults of style, whether real or imaginary, excite the malignity of a more numerous class of readers than the use of hard words.... But words are hard only to those who do not understand them; and the critic ought always to inquire, whether he is incommoded by the fault of the writer or by his own. Every author does not write for every reader.' See _post_, Sept. 19, 1777, where Johnson says:--'If Robertson's style be faulty he owes it to me; that is, having too many words, and those too big ones.'

[649] The following passages in Temple's writings shew that a likeness may be discovered between his style and Johnson's:--'There may be firmness and constancy of courage from tradition as well as of belief: nor, methinks, should any man know how to be a coward, that is brought up with the opinion, that all of his nation or city have ever been valiant.' Temple's _Works_, i. 167. 'This is a disease too refined for this country and people, who are well, when they are not ill, and pleased, when they are not troubled; are content, because they think little of it; and seek their happiness in the common eases and commodities of life, or the increase of riches; not amusing themselves with the more speculative contrivances of passion, or refinements of pleasure.' _Ib_. p. 170. 'They send abroad the best of their own butter into all parts, and buy the cheapest out of Ireland, or the north of England, for their own use. In short they furnish infinite luxury which they never practise, and traffic in pleasures which they never taste.' _Ib_. p. 195. See _post_, April 9, 1778, where Johnson says:--'Temple was the first writer who gave cadence to English prose.'

[650] Dean Stanley calls Ephraim Chambers 'the Father of Cyclopedias.' _Memorials of Westminster Abbey_, p. 299, note. The epitaph which Chambers wrote for himself the Dean gives as:--'Multis pervulgatus, paucis notus, qui vitam inter lucem et umbram, nec eruditus nec idioticis literis deditus, transegit.' In the _Gent. Mag_. for 1740, p. 262, the last line is given, no doubt correctly, as:--'Nec eruditus nec idiota, literis deditus.' The second edition of Chambers's _Cyclopaedia_ was published in 1738. There is no copy of his Proposal in the British Museum or Bodleian. The resemblance between his style and Johnson's is not great. The following passage is the most Johnsonian that I could find:--'None of my predecessors can blame me for the use I have made of them; since it is their own avowed practice. It is a kind of privilege attached to the office of lexicographer; if not by any formal grant, yet by connivance at least. I have already assumed the bee for my device, and who ever brought an action of trover or trespass against that avowed free-booter? 'Tis vain to pretend anything of property in things of this nature. To offer our thoughts to the public, and yet pretend a right reserved therein to oneself, if it be not absurd, yet it is sordid. The words we speak, nay the breath we emit, is not more vague and common than our thoughts, when divulged in print.' Chambers's Preface, p. xxiii.

[651] 'There were giants in the earth in those days.' _Gen_. vi. 4.

[652] A GREAT PERSONAGE first appears in the second edition. In the first edition we merely find 'by one whose authority,' &c. Boswell in his _Hebrides_, Aug. 28, 1773, speaks of George III. as 'a Great Personage.' In his _Letter to the People of Scotland_ (p. 90) he thus introduces an anecdote about the King--and Paoli:--'I have one other circumstance to communicate; but it is of the highest value. I communicate it with a mixture of awe and fondness.--That Great Personage, who is allowed by all to have the best _memory_ of any man _born a Briton_, &c. In the _Probationary Odes for the Laureateship_, published a few months after Boswell's _Letter_, a 'Great Personage' is ludicrously introduced; pp. xxx. 63.

[653] The first nine lines form the motto.

[654] Horat. _Epist_. Lib. ii. Epist. ii. {1, 110} BOSWELL.

But how severely with themselves proceed The men, who write such verse as we can read! Their own strict judges, not a word they spare That wants or force, or light, or weight, or care, Howe'er unwillingly it quits its place, Nay, though at court, perhaps, it may find grace: Such they'll degrade; and some-times, in its stead, In downright charity revive the dead; Mark where a bold expressive phrase appears, Bright through the rubbish of some hundred years; Command old words that long have slept to wake, Words that wise Bacon or brave Rawleigh spake; Or bid the new be English, ages hence, (For use will father what's begot by sense;) Pour the full tide of eloquence along, Serenely pure, and yet divinely strong, Rich with the treasures of each foreign tongue.'

Pope, _Imitations of Horace_, ii. 2. 157

[655] 'Horat. _De Arte Poetica_. [1. 48.] BOSWELL.

[656] See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 29, 1773, where Boswell says that up that date he had twice heard Johnson coin words, _peregrinity_ and _depeditation_.

[657] 'The words which our authors have introduced by their knowledge of foreign languages, or ignorance of their own, by vanity or wantonness, by compliance with fashion or lust of innovation, I have registered as they occurred, though commonly only to censure them, and warn others against the folly of naturalizing useless foreigners to the injury of the natives.... Our language for almost a century has, by the concurrence of many causes, been gradually departing from its original Teutonick character, and deviating towards a Gallick structure and phraseology, from which it ought to be our endeavour to recall it, by making our ancient volumes the groundwork of style.... From the authors which rose in the time of Elizabeth a speech might be formed adequate to all the purposes of use and elegance.' Johnson's _Works_, v. pp. 31, 39. See _post_. May 12, 1778.

[658] If Johnson sometimes indulged his _Brownism_ (see _post_, beginning of 1756), yet he saw much to censure in Browne's style. 'His style is, indeed, a tissue of many languages; a mixture of heterogeneous words, brought together from distant regions, with terms originally appropriated to one art, and drawn by violence into the service of another. He must however be confessed to have augmented our philosophical diction.... His innovations are sometimes pleasing, and his temerities happy.' Johnson's _Works_, vi. 500. 'It is remarkable that the pomp of diction, which has been objected to Johnson, was first assumed in the _Rambler_. His _Dictionary_ was going on at the same time, and in the course of that work, as he grew familiar with technical and scholastic words, he thought that the bulk of his readers were equally learned; or at least would admire the splendour and dignity of the style.' Murphy's _Johnson_, p. 156.

'The observation of his having imitated Sir Thomas Brown has been made by many people; and lately it has been insisted on, and illustrated by a variety of quotations from Brown, in one of the popular Essays written by the Reverend Mr. Knox [the Essay is No. xxii. of _Winter Evenings_, Knox's _Works_, ii 397], master of Tumbridge school, whom I have set down in my list [_post_, under Dec. 6, 1784] of those who have sometimes not unsuccessfully imitated Dr. Johnson's style. BOSWELL.

[659] The following observation in Mr. Boswell's _Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides_ [p. 9] may sufficiently account for that Gentleman's being 'now scarcely esteem'd a Scot' by many of his countrymen:--If he [Dr. Johnson] was particularly prejudiced against the Scots, it was because they were more in his way; because he thought their success in England rather exceeded the due proportion of their real merit; and because he could not but see in them that nationality which, I believe, no liberal-minded Scotchman will deny.' Mr. Boswell, indeed, is so free from national prejudices, that he might with equal propriety have been described as--

'Scarce by _South_ Britons now esteem'd a Scot.' COURTENAY. BOSWELL.

[660] Malone says that 'Baretti used sometimes to walk with Johnson through the streets at night, and occasionally entered into conversation with the unfortunate women who frequent them, for the sake of hearing their stories. It was from a history of one of these, which a girl told under a tree in the King's Bench Walk in the Temple to Baretti and Johnson, that he formed the story of Misella in the _Rambler_ [Nos. 170 and 171].' Prior's _Malone_, p. 161. 'Of one [of these women] who was very handsome he asked, for what she thought God had given her so much beauty. She answered:--"To please gentlemen."' Hawkins's _Johnson_, p. 321. See also _post_, under Dec. 2, 1784.

[661] Hawkins (_Life_, p. 270) had said that 'the characteristics of Addison's style are feebleness and inanity.' He was thus happily ridiculed by Person:--'Soon after the publication of Sir John's book, a parcel of Eton boys, not having the fear of God before their eyes, etc., instead of playing truant, robbing orchards, annoying poultry, or performing any other part of their school exercise, fell foul in print (see the _Microcosm_, No. 36) upon his Worship's censure of Addison's _middling_ style.... But what can you expect, as Lord Kames justly observes, from a school where boys are taught to rob on the highway?' Person, _Tracts_, p. 339.

[662] _Works_, vii. 473.

[663] When Johnson shewed me a proof-sheet of the character of Addison, in which he so highly extols his style, I could not help observing, that it had not been his own model, as no two styles could differ more from each other.--'Sir, Addison had his style, and I have mine.'--When I ventured to ask him, whether the difference did not consist in this, that Addison's style was full of idioms, colloquial phrases, and proverbs; and his own more strictly grammatical, and free from such phraseology and modes of speech as can never be literally translated or understood by foreigners; he allowed the discrimination to be just.--Let any one who doubts it, try to translate one of Addison's _Spectators_ into Latin, French, or Italian; and though so easy, familiar, and elegant, to an Englishman, as to give the intellect no trouble; yet he would find the transfusion into another language extremely difficult, if not impossible. But a _Rambler_, _Adventurer_, or _Idler_, of Johnson, would fall into any classical or European language, as easily as if it had been originally conceived in it. BURNEY. Mrs. Piozzi (_Anec_. p. 125) recounts how Johnson recommended Addison's works as a model for imitation to Mr. Woodhouse, a poetical shoemaker. '"Give nights and days, Sir, (said he) to the study of Addison, if you mean either to be a good writer, or, what is more worth, an honest man." When I saw something like the same expression in his criticism on that author, I put him in mind of his past injunctions to the young poet, to which he replied, "That he wished the shoemaker might have remembered them as well."' Yet he says in his _Life of Pope ( Works_, viii. 284), 'He that has once studiously formed a style rarely writes afterwards with complete ease.'

[664] I shall probably, in another work, maintain the merit of Addison's poetry, which has been very unjustly depreciated. BOSWELL. He proposed also to publish an edition of Johnson's poems (_ante_, p. 16), an account of his own travels (_post_, April 17, 1778), a collection, with notes, of old tenures and charters of Scotland (_post_, Oct. 27, 1779), and a History of James IV. of Scotland, 'the patron,' as he said, 'of my family' (Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 23, 1773).

[665] Lewis thus happily translates the lines in _Martial_,--

'Diligat ilia senèm quondam: sed et ipsa marito, Tunc quoque cum fuerit, non videatur, anus. 'Wrinkled with age, may mutual love and truth To their dim eyes recall the bloom of youth.'

_Rambler_, No. 167.

Some of Johnson's own translations are happy, as:--

'Quam juvat immites ventos audire cubantem Aut, gelidas hibernus aquas quum fuderit auster, Securum somnos, imbre juvante, sequi! 'How sweet in sleep to pass the careless hours, Lull'd by the beating winds and dashing show'rs.'

_Ib_. No. 117.

[666] [Greek: Augon ek makaron antaxios eiae amoibae.]

'Celestial powers! that piety regard, From you my labours wait their last reward.'

A modification of the Greek line is engraved on the scroll in Johnson's monument in St. Paul's (_post_, Dec. 1784).

[667] 'The essays professedly serious, if I have been able to execute my own intentions, will be found exactly conformable to the precepts of Christianity.... I therefore look back on this part of my work with pleasure, which no blame or praise of man shall diminish or augment.' _Rambler_, No. 208.

[668] I have little doubt that this attack on the concluding verse is an indirect blow at Hawkins, who had quoted the whole passage, and had clearly thought it the more 'awful' on account of the couplet. See Hawkins's _Johnson_, p. 291.

[669] In the original _Raleigh's_.

[670] The italics are Boswell's.

[671] Mrs. Williams is probably the person meant. BOSWELL.

[672] 'In 1750, April 5, _Comus_ was played for her benefit. She had so little acquaintance with diversion or gaiety, that she did not know what was intended when a benefit was theatre was offered her. The profits of the night were only £130, though Dr. Newton brought a large contribution; and £20 were given by Tonson, a man who is to be praised as often as he is named.... This was the greatest benefaction that _Paradise Lost_ ever procured the author's descendants; and to this he who has now attempted to relate his life had the honour of contributing a Prologue.' Johnson's _Works, vii. 118_. In the _Gent. Mag_. (xx. 152) we read that, as on 'April 4, the night first appointed, many in convenient circumstances happened to disappoint the hopes of success, the managers generously quitted the profits of another night, in which the theatre was expected to be fuller. Mr. Samuel Johnson's prologue was afterwards printed for Mrs. Foster's benefit.'

[673] Johnson is thinking of Pope's lines--

'But still the great have kindness in reserve, He helped to bury whom he helped to starve.'

Prologue to the _Satires_, 1. 247. In the _Life of Milton_ he writes:--'In our time a monument has been erected in Westminster Abbey _To the author of Paradise Lost_ by Mr. Benson, who has in the inscription bestowed more words upon himself than upon Milton.' Johnson's _Works_, vii. 112. Pope has a hit at Benson in the _Dunciad_,