Chapter 10

How did the good, the virtuous mourn.'

For Dr. Hurd see _ante_, p. 189.

[897] There is a curious anecdote of this physician in _Gent. Mag._ 1772, p. 467.

[898] See _ante_, p. 166. He may have taken the more to Fox, as he had taken to Beauclerk (_ante_, i. 248), on account of his descent from Charles II. Fox was the great-great-grandson of that king. His Christian names recall his Stuart ancestry.

[899] Horace Walpole wrote on April 11 (_Letters_, viii. 469):--'In truth Mr. Fox has all the popularity in Westminster; and, indeed, is so amiable and winning that, could he have stood in person all over England, I question whether he would not have carried the Parliament.' Hannah More (_Memoirs_, i. 316) in the same month wrote:--'Unluckily for my principles I met Fox canvassing the other day, and he looked so sensible and agreeable, that if I had not turned my eyes another way, I believe it would have been all over with me.' See _ante_, p. 279.

[900] Dr. John Radcliffe, who died in 1714, left by his will, among other great benefactions to the University of Oxford, '£600 yearly to two persons, when they are Masters of Arts and entered on the physic-line, for their maintenance for the space of ten years; the half of which time at least they are to travel in parts beyond sea for their better improvement.' _Radcliffe's Life and Will_, p. 123. Pope mentions them in his _Imitations of Horace, Epistles_, ii. i. 183:--

'E'en Radcliffe's doctors travel first to France, Nor dare to practise till they've learned to dance.'

[901] What risks were run even by inoculation is shewn in two of Dr. Warton's letters. He wrote to his brother:--'This moment the dear children have all been inoculated, never persons behaved better, no whimpering at all, I hope in God for success, but cannot avoid being in much anxiety.' A few days later he wrote:--'You may imagine I never passed such a day as this in my life! grieved to death myself for the loss of so sweet a child, but forced to stifle my feelings as much as possible for the sake of my poor wife. She does not, however, hit on, or dwell on, that most cutting circumstance of all, poor Nanny's dying, as it were by our own means, tho' well intended indeed.' Wooll's _Warton_, i. 289. Dr. Franklin (_Memoirs_, i. 155), on the other hand, bitterly regretted that he had not had a child inoculated, whom he lost by small-pox.

[902] See _post_, before Nov. 17, and under Dec. 9, 1784.

[903] 'I am the vilest of sinners and the worst of men.' Taylor's _Works_ (ed. 1864), iii. 31. 'The best men deserve not eternal life, and I who am the worst may have it given me.' _Ib_. p. 431--'He that hath lived worst, even I.' _Ib_. vii. 241. 'Behold me the meanest of thy creatures.' _Ib_. p. 296.

[904] 'You may fairly look upon yourself to be the greatest sinner that you know in the world. First, because you know more of the folly of your own heart than you do of other people's; and can charge yourself with various sins that you only know of yourself, and cannot be sure that other people are guilty of them.' Law's _Serious Call_, chap. 23.

[905] 1 _Timothy_, i. 15.

[906] See _post_, v. 68, note 4.

[907] 'Be careful thou dost not speak a lie in thy prayers, which though not observed is frequently practised by careless persons, especially in the forms of confession, affirming things which they have not thought, professing sorrow which is not, making a vow they mean not.' Taylor's _Works_, ed. 1865, vii. 622.

[908] Reynolds wrote:--'As in Johnson's writings not a line can be found which a saint would wish to blot, so in his life he would never suffer the least immorality or indecency of conversation, [or anything] contrary to virtue or piety to proceed without a severe check, which no elevation of rank exempted them from.' Taylor's _Reynolds_, ii. 458. See _ante_, iii. 41.

[909] No doubt Mr. Langton.

[910] Dr. Sheridan tells how Swift overheard a Captain Hamilton say to a gentleman at whose house he had arrived 'that he was very sorry he had chosen that time for his visit. "Why so?" "Because I hear Dean Swift is with you. He is a great scholar, a wit; a plain country squire will have but a bad time of it in his company, and I don't like to be laughed at." Swift then stepped up and said, "Pray, Captain Hamilton, do you know how to say _yes_ or _no_ properly?" "Yes, I think I have understanding enough for that." "Then give me your hand--depend upon it, you and I will agree very well."' 'The Captain told me,' continues Sheridan, 'that he never passed two months so pleasantly in his life.' Swift's _Works_, ed. 1803, ii. 104.

[911] Gibbon wrote on Feb. 21, 1772 (_Misc. Works_, ii. 78):--'To day the House of Commons was employed in a very odd way. Tommy Townshend moved that the sermon of Dr. Nowell, who preached before the House on the 30th of January (_id est_, before the Speaker and four members), should be burnt by the common hangman, as containing arbitrary, Tory, high-flown doctrines. The House was nearly agreeing to the motion, till they recollected that they had already thanked the preacher for his excellent discourse, and ordered it to be printed.'

[912]

'Although it be not _shined_ upon.' _Hudibras_, iii. 2, 175.

[913] According to Mr. Croker, this was the Rev. Henry Bate, of the _Morning Post_, who in 1784 took the name of Dudley, was created a baronet in 1815, and died in 1824. Horace Walpole wrote on Nov. 13, 1776 (_Letters_, vi. 39l):--'Yesterday I heard drums and trumpets in Piccadilly: I looked out of the window and saw a procession with streamers flying. At first I thought it a press-gang, but seeing the corps so well-drest, like Hussars, in yellow with blue waistcoats and breeches, and high caps, I concluded it was some new body of our allies, or a regiment newly raised, and with new regimentals for distinction. I was not totally mistaken, for the Colonel is _a new ally_. In short, this was a procession set forth by Mr. Bate, Lord Lyttelton's chaplain, and author of the old _Morning Post_, and meant as an appeal to the town against his antagonist, the new one.' In June, 1781, Bate was sentenced to a year's imprisonment 'for an atrocious libel on the Duke of Richmond. He was the worst of all the scandalous libellers that had appeared both on private persons as well as public. His life was dissolute, and he had fought more than one duel. Yet Lord Sandwich had procured for him a good Crown living, and he was believed to be pensioned by the Court.' Walpole's _Journal of the Reign of George III_, ii. 464.

[914] See _ante_, ii. 339, and iii. 265.

[915] Three days earlier, in the debate on the Westminster Scrutiny, Fox accused 'a person of great rank in this House'--Pitt I believe--'of adding pertness and personal contumely to every species of rash and inconsiderate violence.' _Parl. Hist_. xxiv. 924. Pitt, in reply, classed Fox among 'political apostates,' _ib_. p. 929. Burke, the same evening, 'sat down saying, "he little minded the ill-treatment of a parcel of boys."' When he was called to order, he said:--'When he used the term "a parcel of boys," he meant to apply it to the ministry, who, he conceived, were insulting him with their triumph; a triumph which grey hairs ought to be allowed the privilege of expressing displeasure at, when it was founded on the rash exultation of mere boys.' _Ib_. p. 939. Pitt, Prime-Minister though he was, in the spring of the same year, was called to order by the Speaker, for charging a member with using 'language the most false, the most malicious, and the most slanderous.' _Ib_. p. 763.

[916] _Epistles to Mr. Pope_, ii. 165.

[917] See an account of him, in a sermon by the Reverend Mr. Agutter. BOSWELL. This sermon was published in 1788. In Hannah More's _Memoirs_ (i. 217), Henderson is described as 'a mixture of great sense, which discovered uncommon parts and learning, with a tincture of nonsense of the most extravagant kind. He believes in witches and apparitions, as well as in judicial astronomy.' Mrs. Kennicott writes (_ib_. p. 220):--'I think if Dr. Johnson had the shaking him about, he would shake out his nonsense, and set his sense a-working. 'He never got out into the world, says Dr. Hall, the Master of Pembroke College, having died in College in 1788.

[918] This was the second Lord Lyttelton, commonly known as 'the wicked Lord Lyttelton.' Fox described him to Rogers as 'a very bad man--downright wicked.' Rogers's _Table Talk_, p. 95. He died Nov. 27, 1779. Horace Walpole (_Letters_, vii. 292) wrote to Mason on Dec. 11 of that year:--'If you can send us any stories of ghosts out of the North, they will be very welcome. Lord Lyttelton's vision has revived the taste; though it seems a little odd that an apparition should despair of being able to get access to his Lordship's bed in the shape of a young woman, without being forced to use the disguise of a robin-red-breast.' In the _Gent. Mag._ 1815, i. 597, and 1816, ii. 421, accounts are given of this vision. In the latter account it is said that 'he saw a bird fluttering, and afterwards a woman appeared in white apparel, and said, "Prepare to die; you will not exist three days."' Mrs. Piozzi also wrote a full account of it. Hayward's _Piozzi_, i. 332.

[919] See _ante_, ii. 150, and iii. 298, note 1.

[920] See _ante_, p. 278.

[921] 'If he who considers himself as suspended over the abyss of eternal perdition only by the thread of life, which must soon part by its own weakness, and which the wing of every minute may divide, can cast his eyes round him without shuddering with horror, or panting for security; what can he judge of himself, but that he is not yet awakened to sufficient conviction? &c.' _The Rambler_, No. 110. In a blank leaf in the book in which Johnson kept his diary of his journey in Wales is written in his own hand, 'Faith in some proportion to Fear.' Duppa's Johnson's _Diary of a Journey &c_., p. 157. See _ante_, iii. 199.

[922] He wrote to Mrs. Thrale on March 20:--'Write to me no more about _dying with a grace_; when you feel what I have felt in approaching eternity--in fear of soon hearing the sentence of which there is no revocation, you will know the folly.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 354. Of him it might have been said in Cowper's words:--

'Scripture is still a trumpet to his fears.'

_The Task: The Winter Morning Walk_, 1. 611. See _ante_, iii. 294.

[923] The Reverend Mr. Ralph Churton, Fellow of Brazen-Nose College, Oxford, has favoured me with the following remarks on my Work, which he is pleased to say, 'I have hitherto extolled, and cordially approve.'

'The chief part of what I have to observe is contained in the following transcript from a letter to a friend, which, with his concurrence, I copied for this purpose; and, whatever may be the merit or justness of the remarks, you may be sure that being written to a most intimate friend, without any intention that they ever should go further, they are the genuine and undisguised sentiments of the writer:--

'Jan. 6, 1792.

'Last week, I was reading the second volume of Boswell's _Johnson_, with increasing esteem for the worthy authour, and increasing veneration of the wonderful and excellent man who is the subject of it. The writer throws in, now and then, very properly some serious religious reflections; but there is one remark, in my mind an obvious and just one, which I think he has not made, that Johnson's "morbid melancholy," and constitutional infirmities, were intended by Providence, like St. Paul's thorn in the flesh, to check intellectual conceit and arrogance; which the consciousness of his extraordinary talents, awake as he was to the voice of praise, might otherwise have generated in a very culpable degree. Another observation strikes me, that in consequence of the same natural indisposition, and habitual sickliness, (for he says he scarcely passed one day without pain after his twentieth year,) he considered and represented human life, as a scene of much greater misery than is generally experienced. There may be persons bowed down with affliction all their days; and there are those, no doubt, whose iniquities rob them of rest; but neither calamities nor crimes, I hope and believe, do so much and so generally abound, as to justify the dark picture of life which Johnson's imagination designed, and his strong pencil delineated. This I am sure, the colouring is far too gloomy for what I have experienced, though as far as I can remember, I have had more sickness (I do not say more severe, but only more in quantity,) than falls to the lot of most people. But then daily debility and occasional sickness were far overbalanced by intervenient days, and, perhaps, weeks void of pain, and overflowing with comfort. So that in short, to return to the subject, human life, as far as I can perceive from experience or observation, is not that state of constant wretchedness which Johnson always insisted it was; which misrepresentation, (for such it surely is,) his Biographer has not corrected, I suppose, because, unhappily, he has himself a large portion of melancholy in his constitution, and fancied the portrait a faithful copy of life.'

The learned writer then proceeds thus in his letter to me:--

'I have conversed with some sensible men on this subject, who all seem to entertain the same sentiments respecting life with those which are expressed or implied in the foregoing paragraph. It might be added that as the representation here spoken of, appears not consistent with fact and experience, so neither does it seem to be countenanced by Scripture. There is, perhaps, no part of the sacred volume which at first sight promises so much to lend its sanction to these dark and desponding notions as the book of _Ecclesiastes_, which so often, and so emphatically, proclaims the vanity of things sublunary. But the design of this whole book, (as it has been justly observed,) is not to put us out of conceit with life, but to cure our vain expectations of a compleat and perfect happiness in this world; to convince us, that there is no such thing to be found in mere external enjoyments;--and to teach us to seek for happiness in the practice of virtue, in the knowledge and love of God, and in the hopes of a better life. For this is the application of all; _Let us hear_, &c. xii. 13. Not only his duty, but his happiness too; _For_ GOD, &c. ver. 14.--See _Sherlock on Providence_, p. 299.

'The New Testament tells us, indeed, and most truly, that "sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof;" and, therefore, wisely forbids us to increase our burden by forebodings of sorrows; but I think it no where says that even our ordinary afflictions are not consistent with a very considerable degree of positive comfort and satisfaction. And, accordingly, one whose sufferings as well as merits were conspicuous, assures us, that in proportion "as the sufferings of Christ abounded in them, so their consolation also abounded by Christ." 2 _Cor_. i. 5. It is needless to cite, as indeed it would be endless even to refer to, the multitude of passages in both Testaments holding out, in the strongest language, promises of blessings, even in this world, to the faithful servants of GOD. I will only refer to _St. Luke_, xviii. 29, 30, and 1 _Tim_. iv. 8.

'Upon the whole, setting aside instances of great and lasting bodily pain, of minds peculiarly oppressed by melancholy, and of severe temporal calamities, from which extraordinary cases we surely should not form our estimate of the general tenour and complexion of life; excluding these from the account, I am convinced that as well the gracious constitution of things which Providence has ordained, as the declarations of Scripture and the actual experience of individuals, authorize the sincere Christian to hope that his humble and constant endeavours to perform his duty, checquered as the best life is with many failings, will be crowned with a greater degree of present peace, serenity, and comfort, than he could reasonably permit himself to expect, if he measured his views and judged of life from the opinion of Dr. Johnson, often and energetically expressed in the Memoirs of him, without any animadversion or censure by his ingenious Biographer. If he himself, upon reviewing the subject, shall see the matter in this light, he will, in an octavo edition, which is eagerly expected, make such additional remarks or correction as he shall judge fit; lest the impressions which these discouraging passages may leave on the reader's mind, should in any degree hinder what otherwise the whole spirit and energy of the work tends, and, I hope, successfully, to promote,--pure morality and true religion.'

Though I have, in some degree, obviated any reflections against my illustrious friend's dark views of life, when considering, in the course of this Work, his _Rambler_ [_ante_, i. 213] and his _Rasselas_ [_ante_, i. 343], I am obliged to Mr. Churton for complying with my request of his permission to insert his Remarks, being conscious of the weight of what he judiciously suggests as to the melancholy in my own constitution. His more pleasing views of life, I hope, are just. _Valeant quantum valere possunt_.

Mr. Churton concludes his letter to me in these words:--'Once, and only once, I had the satisfaction of seeing your illustrious friend; and as I feel a particular regard for all whom he distinguished with his esteem and friendship, so I derive much pleasure from reflecting that I once beheld, though but transiently near our College gate, one whose works will for ever delight and improve the world, who was a sincere and zealous son of the Church of England, an honour to his country, and an ornament to human nature.'

His letter was accompanied with a present from himself of his _Sermons at the Bampton Lecture_, and from his friend, Dr. Townson, the venerable Rector of Malpas, in Cheshire, of his _Discourses on the Gospels_, together with the following extract of a letter from that excellent person, who is now gone to receive the reward of his labours:--'Mr. Boswell is not only very entertaining in his works, but they are so replete with moral and religious sentiments, without an instance, as far as I know, of a contrary tendency, that I cannot help having a great esteem for him; and if you think such a trifle as a copy of the _Discourses, ex dono authoris_, would be acceptable to him, I should be happy to give him this small testimony of my regard.'

Such spontaneous testimonies of approbation from such men, without any personal acquaintance with me, are truly valuable and encouraging. BOSWELL.

[924]

'Tout se plaint, tout gémit en cherchant le bien-etre; Nul ne voudrait mourir, nul ne voudrait renaitre.'

Voltaire, _Le désastre de Lisbonne. Works_, ed. 1819, x. 124. 'Johnson said that, for his part, he never passed that week in his life which he would wish to repeat, were an angel to make the proposal to him.' _Ante_, ii. 125. Yet Dr. Franklin, whose life overlapped Johnson's at both ends, said:-'I should have no objection to go over the same life from its beginning to the end, requesting only the advantage authors have of correcting in a second edition the faults of its first. So would I also wish to change some incidents of it for others more favourable Notwithstanding, if this condition was denied, I should still accept the offer of re-commencing the same life.' Franklin's _Memoirs_, i. 2.

[925] Mackintosh thus sums up this question:--'The truth is, that endless fallacies must arise from the attempt to appreciate by retrospect human life, of which the enjoyments depend on hope.' _Life of Mackintosh_, ii. 160. See _ante_, ii. 350.

[926] In the lines on Levett. _Ante_, p. 137.

[927] AURENGZEBE, act iv. sc. 1. BOSWELL. According to Dr. Maxwell (_ante_, ii. 124), Johnson frequently quoted the fourth couplet of these lines. Boswell does not give the last--

'I'm tired with waiting for this chemic gold Which fools us young, and beggars us when old.'

[928] Johnson, speaking of the companions of his college days, said:-- 'It was bitterness which they mistook for frolick.' _Ante_, i. 73.

[929]

'--to thee I call But with no friendly voice, and add thy name O Sun, to tell thee how I hate thy beams.'

Milton's _Paradise Lost_, iv. 35.

[930] Yet there is no doubt that a man may appear very gay in company who is sad at heart. His merriment is like the sound of drums and trumpets in a battle, to drown the groans of the wounded and dying. BOSWELL.

[931] Mme. D'Arblay (_Memoirs of Dr. Burney_, ii. 103) tells how Johnson was one day invited to her father's house at the request of Mr. Greville, 'the finest gentleman about town,' as she earlier described him (_ib_. i. 25), who desired to make his acquaintance. This 'superb' gentleman was afraid to begin to speak. 'Assuming his most supercilious air of distant superiority he planted himself, immovable as a noble statue, upon the hearth, as if a stranger to the whole set.' Johnson, who 'never spoke till he was spoken to' (_ante_, in. 307)--this habit the Burneys did not as yet know--'became completely absorbed in silent rumination; very unexpectedly, however, he shewed himself alive to what surrounded him, by one of those singular starts of vision, that made him seem at times, though purblind to things in common, gifted with an eye of instinct for espying any action that he thought merited reprehension; for all at once, looking fixedly on Mr. Greville, who without much self-denial, the night being very cold, kept his station before the chimney-piece, he exclaimed:--"If it were not for depriving the ladies of the fire, I should like to stand upon the hearth myself." A smile gleamed upon every face at this pointed speech. Mr. Greville tried to smile himself, though faintly and scoffingly. He tried also to hold his post; and though for two or three minutes he disdained to move, the awkwardness of a general pause impelled him ere long to glide back to his chair; but he rang the bell with force as he passed it to order his carriage.'

[932] Page 139. BOSWELL.

[933] On this same day Miss Adams wrote to a friend:--'Dr. Johnson, tho' not in good health, is in general very talkative and infinitely agreeable and entertaining.' _Pemb. Coll. MSS_.

[934] Johnson said 'Milton was a _Phidias_, &c.' _Ante_, p. 99, note 1. In his _Life of Milton_ (_Works, vii. 119) he writes:--'Milton never learnt the art of doing little things with grace; he overlooked the milder excellence of suavity and softness; he was a _Lion_ that had no skill _in dandling the kid_.'

['Sporting the lion ramped, and in his paw Dandled the kid.'

_Paradise Lost_, iv. 343.]

[935] Cardinal Newman (_History of my Religious Opinions_, ed. 1865, p. 361) remarks on this:--'As to Johnson's case of a murderer asking you which way a man had gone, I should have anticipated that, had such a difficulty happened to him, his first act would have been to knock the man down, and to call out for the police; and next, if he was worsted in the conflict, he would not have given the ruffian the information he asked, at whatever risk to himself. I think he would have let himself be killed first. I do not think that he would have told a lie.'

[936] See _ante_, iii. 376.

[937] Book ii. 1. 142.

[938] The annotator calls them 'amiable verses.' BOSWELL. The annotators of the _Dunciad_ were Pope himself and Dr. Arbuthnot. Johnson's _Works_, viii. 280.

[939] Boswell was at this time corresponding with Miss Seward. See _post_, June 25.

[940] By John Dyer. _Ante_, ii. 453.

[941] Lewis's Verses addressed to Pope were first published in a Collection of Pieces on occasion of _The Dunciad_, 8vo., 1732. They do not appear in Lewis's own _Miscellany_, printed in 1726.--_Grongar Hill_ was first printed in Savage's _Miscellanies_ as an Ode, and was _reprinted_ in the same year in Lewis's _Miscellany_, in the form it now bears.

In his _Miscellanies_, 1726, the beautiful poem,--'Away, let nought to love displeasing,'--reprinted in Percy's _Reliques_, vol. i. book iii. No. 13, first appeared. MALONE.

[942] See _ante_, p. 58.

[943] See _ante_, i. 71, and ii. 226.

[944] Captain Cook's third voyage. The first two volumes by Captain Cook; the last by Captain King.

[945] See _ante_, ii. 73, 228, 248; iii. 49.

[946]

'--quae mollissima fandi Tempora.' '--time wherein the word May softliest be said.'

MORRIS. Virgil, _Aeneids_, iv. 293.

[947] See _ante_, i. 71.

[948] See _ante_, i. 203, note 6.

[949] Boswell began to eat dinners in the Inner Temple so early as 1775. _Ante_, ii. 377, note 1. He was not called till Hilary Term, 1786. Rogers's _Boswelliana_, p. 143.

[950] Mr. (afterwards Sir) William Jones wrote two years earlier (_Life_, p. 268):--'Whether it be a wise part to live uncomfortably in order to die wealthy, is another question; but this I know by experience, and have heard old practitioners make the same observation, that a lawyer who is in earnest must be chained to his chambers and the bar for ten or twelve years together.'

[951] Johnson's _Prologue at the opening of Drury Lane Theatre. Works, _ i. 23.

[952] According to Mr. Seward, who published this account in his _Anecdotes,_ ii. 83, it was Mr. Langton's great-grandfather who drew it up.

[953] 'My Lord said that his rule for his, health was to be temperate and keep himself warm. He never made breakfasts, but used in the morning to drink a glass of some sort of ale. That he went to bed at nine, and rose between six and seven, allowing himself a good refreshment for his sleep. That the law will admit of no rival, nothing to go even with it; but that sometimes one may for diversion read in the Latin historians of England, Hoveden and Matthew Paris, &c. But after it is conquered, it will admit of other studies. He said, a little law, a good tongue, and a good memory, would fit a man for the Chancery.' Seward's _Anecdotes_, ii. 92.

[954] Wednesday was the 16th

[955] See _ante_, i. 41.

[956] _Letters to Mrs. Thrale_, vol. ii. p. 372. BOSWELL.

[957] See _ante/_, i. 155.

[958] The recommendation in this list of so many histories little agrees 'with the fierce and boisterous contempt of ignorance' with which, according to Lord Macaulay, Johnson spoke of history. Macaulay's _Essays_, ed. 1843, i. 403.

[959] See _ante_, iii. 12.

[960] Northcote's account of Reynolds's table suits the description of this 'gentleman's mode of living.' 'A table prepared for seven or eight was often compelled to contain fifteen or sixteen.' There was a 'deficiency of knives and forks, plates and glasses. The attendance was in the same style.' There were 'two or three undisciplined domestics. The host left every one at perfect liberty to scramble for himself.' 'Rags' is certainly a strong word to apply to any of the company; but then strong words were what Johnson used. Northcote mentions 'the mixture of company.' Northcote's _Reynolds_, ii. 94-6. See _ante_, iii. 375, note 2.

[961] The Mayor of Windsor. Rogers's _Boswelliana_, p. 211.

[962] The passage occurs in Brooke's _Earl of Essex_(1761) at the close of the first act, where Queen Elizabeth says:

'I shall henceforth seek For other lights to truth; for righteous monarchs, Justly to judge, with their own eyes should see; _To rule o'er freemen should themselves be free_.' _Notes and Queries_, 5th S. viii. 456.

The play was acted at Drury Lane Theatre, old Mr. Sheridan taking the chief part. He it was who, in admiration, repeated the passage to Johnson which provoked the parody. Murphy's _Garrick_, p. 234.

[963] 'Letters to Mrs. Thrale, vol. ii. p. 284. BOSWELL. In a second letter (_ib_. p. 347) he says:--'Cator has a rough, manly independent understanding, and does not spoil it by complaisance.' Miss Burney accuses him of emptiness, verbosity and pomposity, all of which she describes in an amusing manner. Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii. 47.

[964] 'All general reflections upon nations and societies are the trite, thread-bare jokes of those who set up for wit without having any, and so have recourse to common-place.' Chesterfield's _Letters_, i. 231.

[965] See vol. ii. p. 126. BOSWELL

[966] '"That may be so," replied the lady, "for ought I know, but they are above my comprehension." "I an't obliged to find you comprehension, Madam, curse me," cried he,' _Roderick Random_, ch. 53. '"I protest," cried Moses, "I don't rightly comprehend the force of your reasoning." "O, Sir," cried the Squire, "I am your most humble servant, I find you want me to furnish you with argument and intellects too."' _Vicar of Wakefield_, ch. 7.

[967] In the first edition, 'as the Honourable Horace Walpole is often called;' in the second edition, 'as Horace, now Earl of Orford, &c.' Walpole succeeded to the title in Dec. 1791. In answer to congratulations he wrote (_Letters_, ix. 364):--'What has happened destroys my tranquillity.... Surely no man of seventy-four, unless superannuated, can have the smallest pleasure in sitting at home in his own room, as I almost always do, and being called by a new name.' He died March 2, 1797.

[968] In _The Rambler_, No. 83, a character of a virtuoso is given which in many ways suits Walpole:--'It is never without grief that I find a man capable of ratiocination or invention enlisting himself in this secondary class of learning; for when he has once discovered a method of gratifying his desire of eminence by expense rather than by labour, and known the sweets of a life blest at once with the ease of idleness and the reputation of knowledge, he will not easily be brought to undergo again the toil of thinking, or leave his toys and trinkets for arguments and principles.'

[969] Walpole says:--'I do not think I ever was in a room with Johnson six times in my days.' _Letters_, ix. 319. 'The first time, I think, was at the Royal Academy. Sir Joshua said, "Let me present Dr. Goldsmith to you;" he did. "Now I will present Dr. Johnson to you." "No," said I, "Sir Joshua; for Dr. Goldsmith, pass--but you shall not present Dr. Johnson to me."' _Journal &c. of Miss Berry_, i. 305. In his _Journal of the Reign of George III_, he speaks of Johnson as 'one of the venal champions of the Court,' 'a renegade' (i. 430); 'a brute,' 'an old decrepit hireling' (_ib._ p. 472); and as 'one of the subordinate crew whom to name is to stigmatize' (_ib._ ii. 5). In his _Memoirs of the Reign of George III_, iv. 297, he says:--'With a lumber of learning and some strong parts Johnson was an odious and mean character. His manners were sordid, supercilious, and brutal; his style ridiculously bombastic and vicious, and, in one word, with all the pedantry he had all the gigantic littleness of a country schoolmaster.'

[970] See _ante_, i. 367.

[971] On May 26, 1791, Walpole wrote of Boswell's _Life of Johnson (Letters_ ix. 3l9):--'I expected amongst the excommunicated to find myself, but am very gently treated. I never would be in the least acquainted with Johnson; or, as Boswell calls it, I had not a just value for him; which the biographer imputes to my resentment for the Doctor's putting bad arguments (purposely out of Jacobitism) into the speeches which he wrote fifty years ago for my father in the _Gentleman's Magazine_; which I did not read then, or ever knew Johnson wrote till Johnson died.' Johnson said of these Debates:--'I saved appearances tolerably well; but I took care that the Whig dogs should not have the best of it.' _Ante_, i. 504. 'Lord Holland said that whenever Boswell came into a company where Horace Walpole was, Walpole would throw back his head, purse up his mouth very significantly, and not speak a word while Boswell remained.' _Autobiographical Recollections of C. R. Leslie_, i. 155. Walpole (_Letters_, viii. 44) says:--'Boswell, that quintessence of busybodies, called on me last week, and was let in, which he should not have been, could I have foreseen it. After tapping many topics, to which I made as dry answers as an unbribed oracle, he vented his errand.'

[972] Walpole wrote (_Letters_, vi. 44):--'If _The School for Wives_ and _The Christmas Tale_ were laid to me, so was _The Heroic Espistle_. I could certainly have written the two former, but not the latter.' See _ante_, iv. 113.

[973] The title given by Bishop Pearson to his collection of Hales's Writings is the _Golden Remains of the Ever Memorable John Hales of Eaton College, &c_. It was published in 1659.

[974] I _Henry IV_, act ii. sc. 4. 'Sir James Mackintosh remembers that, while spending the Christmas of 1793 at Beaconsfield, Mr. Burke said to him, 'Johnson showed more powers of mind in company than in his writings; but he argued only for victory; and when he had neither a paradox to defend, nor an antagonist to crush, he would preface his assent with "Why, no, Sir."' CROKER. Croker's _Boswell_, p. 768.

[975]

Search then the ruling passion: There alone The wild are constant, and the cunning known; The fool consistent, and the false sincere; Priests, princes, women, no dissemblers here.' Pope, _Moral Essays_, i. 174.

'The publick pleasures of far the greater part of mankind are counterfeit.' _The Idler_, No. 18.

[976] _Ante_, ii. 241, and iii. 325.

[977] Boswell refers to Cicero's _Treatise on Famous Orators_.

[978] Boswell here falls into a mistake. About harvest-time in 1766, there were corn-riots owing to the dearness of bread. By the Act of the 15th of Charles II, corn, when under a certain price, might be legally exported. On Sept. 26, 1766, before this price had been reached, the Crown issued a proclamation to prohibit the exportation of grain. When parliament met in November, a bill of indemnity was brought in for those concerned in the late embargo. 'The necessity of the embargo was universally allowed;' it was the exercise by the Crown of a power of dispensing with the laws that was attacked. Some of the ministers who, out of office, 'had set up as the patrons of liberty,' were made the object 'of many sarcasms on the beaten subject of occasional patriotism.' _Ann. Reg._ x. 39-48, and Dicey's _Law of the Constitution_, p. 50.

[979] _St. Mark_, ii. 9.

[980] _Anecdotes_, p. 43. BOSWELL. The passage is from the _Speech on Conciliation with the Colonies_, March 22, 1775. Payne's _Burke_, i. 173. The image of the angel and Lord Bathurst was thus, according to Mrs. Piozzi, parodied by Johnson:--'Suppose, Mr. Speaker, that to Wharton, or to Marlborough, or to any of the eminent Whigs of the last age, the devil had, not with great impropriety, consented to appear.' See _ante_, iii. 326, where Johnson said 'the first Whig was the Devil.'

[981] Boswell was stung by what Mrs. Piozzi wrote when recording this parody. She said that she had begged Johnson's leave to write it down directly. 'A trick,' she continues, 'which I have seen played on common occasions of sitting steadily [? stealthily] down at the other end of the room to write at the moment what should be said in company, either by Dr. Johnson or to him, I never practised myself, nor approved of in another. There is something so ill-bred, and so inclining to treachery in this conduct, that, were it commonly adopted, all confidence would soon be exiled from society.' See _post_, under June 30, 1784, where Boswell refers to this passage.

[982]

'Who'er offends, at some unlucky time Slides into verse, and hitches in a rhyme.'

Pope, _Imitations of Horace_, 2 Satires, i. 78.

[983] On March 14, 1770, in a debate on the licentiousness of the press, Townshend joined together Johnson and Shebbeare. Burke, who followed him, said nothing about Johnson. Fitzherbert, speaking of Johnson as 'my friend,' defended him as 'a pattern of morality.' _Cavendish Debates_, i.514. On Feb. 16, 1774, when Fox drew attention to a 'vile libel' signed _A South Briton_, Townshend said 'Dr. Shebbeare and Dr. Johnson have been pensioned, but this wretched South Briton is to be prosecuted.' It was Fox, and not Burke, who on this occasion defended Johnson. _Parl. Hist._ xvii.1054. As Goldsmith was writing _Retaliation_ at the very time that this second attack was made, it is very likely that it was the occasion, of the change in the line.

[984] In the original _yet_.

[985]

'Sis pecore et multa dives tellure licebit, Tibique Pactolus fluat.' 'Though wide thy land extends, and large thy fold, Though rivers roll for thee their purest gold.'

FRANCIS. Horace, _Epodes_, xv. 19.

[986] See Macaulay's _Essays_, ed. 1843, i. 404, for Macaulay's appropriation and amplification of this passage.

[987] See _ante_, ii. 168.

[988] Mr. Croker suggests the Rev. Martin Sherlock, an Irish Clergyman, 'who published in 1781 his own travels under the title of _Letters of an English Traveller translated from the French._' Croker's _Boswell, p. 770. Mason writes of him as 'Mister, or Monsieur, or Signor Sherlock, for I am told he is both [sic] French, English, and Italian in print.' Walpole's _Letters_, viii. 202. I think, however, that Dr. Thomas Campbell is meant. His _Philosophical Survey of the South of Ireland_ Boswell calls 'a very entertaining book, which has, however, one fault;--that it assumes the fictitious character of an Englishman.' _Ante_, ii. 339.

[989] See _ante_, iv. 49.

[990] This anecdote is not in the first two editions.

[991] See _ante_, in. 369.

[992] 'I have heard,' says Hawkins (_Life_, p. 409), 'that in many instances, and in some with tears in his eyes, he has apologised to those whom he had offended by contradiction or roughness of behaviour.' See _ante_, ii. 109, and 256, note 1.

[993] Johnson (_Works_, viii. 131) describes Savage's 'superstitious regard to the correction of his sheets ... The intrusion or omission of a comma was sufficient to discompose him, and he would lament an errour of a single letter as a heavy calamity.'

[994] Compositor in the Printing-house means, the person who adjusts the types in the order in which they are to stand for printing; and arranges what is called the _form_, from which an impression is taken. BOSWELL.

[995] This circumstance therefore alluded to in Mr. Courtenay's _Poetical Character_ of him is strictly true. My informer was Mrs. Desmoulins, who lived many years in Dr. Johnson's house. BOSWELL. The following are Mr. Courtenay's lines:--

'Soft-eyed compassion with a look benign, His fervent vows he offered at thy shrine; To guilt, to woe, the sacred debt was paid, And helpless females blessed his pious aid; Snatched from disease, and want's abandoned crew, Despair and anguish from their victims flew; Hope's soothing balm into their bosoms stole, And tears of penitence restored the soul.'

[996] The _Cross Readings_ were said to be formed 'by reading two columns of a newspaper together onwards,' whereby 'the strangest connections were brought about,' such as:--

'This morning the Right Hon. the Speaker was convicted of keeping a disorderly house. Whereas the said barn was set on fire by an incendiary letter dropped early in the morning. By order of the Commissioners for Paving An infallible remedy for the stone and gravel. The sword of state was carried before Sir John Fielding and committed to Newgate.'

_The New Foundling Hospital for Wit_, i. 129. According to Northcote (_Life of Reynolds_, i. 217), 'Dr. Goldsmith declared, in the heat of his admiration of these _Cross Readings_, it would have given him more pleasure to have been the author of them than of all the works he had ever published of his own.' Horace Walpole (Letters, v. 30) writes:-- 'Have you seen that delightful paper composed out of scraps in the newspapers? I laughed till I cried. I mean the paper that says:--

"This day his Majesty will go in great state to fifteen notorious common prostitutes."'

[997] One of these gentlemen was probably Mr. Musgrave (_ante_, ii. 343, note 2), who, says Mrs. Piozzi (_Anec_. p. 295), when 'once he was singularly warm about Johnson's writing the lives of our famous prose authors, getting up and entreating him to set about the work immediately, he coldly replied, "Sit down, Sir."' Miss Burney says that 'the incense he paid Dr. Johnson by his solemn manner of listening, by the earnest reverence with which he eyed him, and by a theatric start of admiration every time he spoke, joined to the Doctor's utter insensibility to all these tokens, made me find infinite difficulty in keeping my countenance.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii. 85. The other gentleman was perhaps Dr. Wharton. _Ante_, ii. 41, note 1.

[998] Probably Dr. Beattie. The number of letters in his name agrees with the asterisks given a few lines below. _Ante_, iii. 339, note 1, and _post_, p. 330.

[999] Johnson, in his _Dictionary_, defines _congé d'élire_ as _the king's permission royal to a dean and chapter in time of vacation, to choose a bishop._ When Dr. Hampden was made Bishop of Hereford in 1848, the Dean resisted the appointment. H. C. Robinson records, on the authority of the Bishop's Secretary (_Diary_, iii. 311), that 'at the actual confirmation in Bow Church the scene was quite ludicrous. After the judge had told the opposers that he could not hear them, the citation for opposers to come forward was repeated, at which the people present laughed out, as at a play.'

[1000] This has been printed in other publications, 'fall _to the ground_.' But Johnson himself gave me the true expression which he had used as above; meaning that the recommendation left as little choice in the one case as the other. BOSWELL. One of the 'other publications is Hawkins's edition of Johnson's _Works_. See in it vol. xi. p. 216.

[1001] They are published in vol. xi. of Hawkins's edition of Johnson's _Works_. 1787, and are often quoted in my notes. It should be remembered that Steevens is not trustworthy. See _ante_, iii. 281, and iv. 178.

[1002] See _ante_, ii. 96.

[1003] See _ante_, p. iii.

[1004] _She Stoops to Conquer_ was first acted on March 15, 1773. The King of Sardinia had died on Feb. 20. _Gent. Mag_. 1773, pp. 149, 151.

[1005] Hannah More (_Memoirs_, i. 170) describes how, in 1780, she went to one of Mrs. Ord's assemblies at a time when 'the mourning for some foreign Wilhelmina Jaquelina was not over. Every human creature was in deep mourning, and I, poor I, all gorgeous in scarlet. Even Jacobite Johnson was in deep mourning.'

[1006] In the tenth edition of the _Rambler_, published in 1784, the entry is still found:--'Milton, Mr. John, remarks on his versification.' In like manner we find:--'Shakspeare, Mr. William, his eminent success in tragi-comedy;' 'Spenser, Mr. Edmund, some imitations of his diction censured;' 'Cowley, Mr. Abraham, a passage in his writing illustrated.'

[1007] See _ante_, p. 116.

[1008] See _ante_, iii. 425, note 3.

[1009] Hawkins (_Life_, p. 571) writes:--'The plan for Johnson's visiting the Continent became so well known, that, as a lady then resident at Rome afterwards informed me, his arrival was anxiously expected throughout Italy.'

[1010] Edward Lord Thurlow. BOSWELL.

[1011] See _ante_, p. 179.

[1012] In 1778.

[1013] 'With Lord Thurlow, while he was at the bar, Johnson was well acquainted. He said to Mr. Murphy twenty years ago, "Thurlow is a man of such vigour of mind that I never knew I was to meet him, but--I was going to tell a falsehood; I was going to say I was afraid of him, and that would not be true, for I was never afraid of any man--but I never knew that I was to meet Thurlow, but I knew I had something to encounter."' _Monthly Review_ for 1787, lxxvi. 382. Murphy, no doubt, was the writer. Lord Campbell (_Lives of the Chancellors_, ed. 1846, v.621) quotes from 'the Diary of a distinguished political character' an account of a meeting between Thurlow and Horne Tooke, in 1801. 'Tooke evidently came forward for a display, and as I considered his powers of conversation as surpassing those of any person I had ever seen (in point of skill and dexterity, and if necessary in _lying_), so I took for granted old grumbling Thurlow would be obliged to lower his top-sail to him--but it seemed as if the very _look_ and _voice_ of Thurlow scared him out of his senses from the first moment. So Tooke tried to recruit himself by wine, and, though not generally a drinker, was very drunk, but all would not do.'

[1014] It is strange that Sir John Hawkins should have related that the application was made by Sir Joshua Reynolds, when he could so easily have been informed of the truth by inquiring of Sir Joshua. Sir John's carelessness to ascertain facts is very remarkable. BOSWELL.

[1015] There is something dreadful in the thought of the old man quietly going on with his daily life within a few hundred yards of this shocking scene of slaughter, this 'legal massacre,' to use his own words (_ante_, p. 188, note 3). England had a kind of Reign of Terror of its own; little thought of at the time or remembered since. Twenty-four men were sentenced to death at the Old Bailey Sessions that ended on April 28. On June 16 nine of these had the sentence commuted; the rest were hanged this day. Among these men was not a single murderer. Twelve of them had committed burglary, two a street robbery, and one had personated another man's name, with intent to receive his wages. _Ann. Reg_. xxvii, 193, and _Gent. Mag_. liv. 379, 474. The _Gent. Mag_. recording the sentences, remarks:--'Convicts under sentence of death in Newgate and the gaols throughout the kingdom increase so fast, that, were they all to be executed, England would soon be marked among the nations as the _Bloody Country_.' In the spring assizes the returns are given for ten towns. There were 88 capital convictions, of which 21 were at Winchester. _Ib_. 224. In the summer assizes and at the Old Bailey Sessions for July there were 149 capital convictions. At Maidstone a man on being sentenced 'gave three loud cheers, upon which the judge gave strict orders for his being chained to the floor of the dungeon.' _Ib_. pp. 311, 633. The hangman was to grow busier yet. This increase in the number of capital punishments was attributed by Romilly in great part to Madan's _Thoughts on Executive Justice_; 'a small tract, in which, by a mistaken application of the maxim "that the certainty of punishment is more efficacious than its severity for the prevention of crimes," he absurdly insisted on the expediency of rigidly enforcing, in every instance, our penal code, sanguinary and barbarous as it was. In 1783, the year before the book was published, there were executed in London only 51 malefactors; in 1785, the year after the book was published, there were executed 97; and it was recently after the publication of the book that was exhibited a spectacle unseen in London for a long course of years before, the execution of nearly 20 criminals at a time.' _Life of Romilly_, i. 89. Madan's Tract was published in the winter of 1784-5. Boswell's fondness for seeing executions is shewn, _ante_, ii. 93.

[1016] See _ante_, ii. 82, 104; iii. 290; and v. 7l.

[1017] A friend of mine happened to be passing by a _field congregation_ in the environs of London, when a Methodist preacher quoted this passage with triumph. BOSWELL. On Dec. 26, 1784, John Wesley preached the condemned criminals' sermon to forty-seven who were under sentence of death. He records:--'The power of the Lord was eminently present, and most of the prisoners were in tears. A few days after, twenty of them died at once, five of whom died in peace. I could not but greatly approve of the spirit and behaviour of Mr. Villette, the Ordinary; and I rejoiced to hear that it was the same on all similar occasions.' Wesley's _Journal_, ed. 1827, iv. 287.

[1018] I trust that THE CITY OF LONDON, now happily in unison with THE COURT, will have the justice and generosity to obtain preferment for this Reverend Gentleman, now a worthy old servant of that magnificent Corporation. BOSWELL. In like manner, Boswell in 1768 praised the Rev. Mr. Moore, Mr. Villette's predecessor. 'Mr. Moore, the Ordinary of Newgate, discharged his duty with much earnestness and a fervour for which I and all around me esteemed and loved him. Mr. Moore seems worthy of his office, which, when justly considered, is a very important one.' _London Mag._ 1783, p. 204. For the quarrel between the City and the Court, see _ante_, iii. 201.

[1019] See _ante_, i. 387.

[1020] Knox in _Winter Evenings_, No. xi. (_Works_, ii. 348), attacks Johnson's biographers for lowering his character by publishing his private conversation. 'Biography,' he complains, 'is every day descending from its dignity.' See _ante_, i. 222, note 1.

[1021] _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 256.

[1022] Johnson wrote on April 15:--'I am still very weak, though my appetite is keen and my digestion potent. ... I now think and consult to-day what I shall eat to-morrow. This disease likewise will, I hope, be cured.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 362. Beattie, who dined with Johnson on June 27, wrote:--'Wine, I think, would do him good, but he cannot be prevailed on to drink it. He has, however, a voracious appetite for food. I verily believe that on Sunday last he ate as much to dinner as I have done in all for these ten days past.' Forbes's _Beattie_, ed. 1824, p. 315. It was said that Beattie latterly indulged somewhat too much in wine. _Ib_. p. 432.

[1023] Horace Walpole wrote in April 1750 (_Letters_, ii. 206):--'There is come from France a Madame Bocage who has translated Milton: my Lord Chesterfield prefers the copy to the original; but that is not uncommon for him to do, who is the patron of bad authors and bad actors. She has written a play too, which was damned, and worthy my lord's approbation.' It was this lady who bade her footman blow into the spout of the tea-pot. _Ante_, ii. 403. Dr. J. H. Burton writes of her in his _Life of Hume_, ii. 213:--'The wits must praise her bad poetry if they frequented her house. "Elle était d'une figure aimable," says Grimm, "elle est bonne femme; elle est riche; elle pouvait fixer chez elle les gens d'esprit et de bonne compagnie, sans les mettre dans l'embarras de lui parler avec peu de sincérité de sa Colombiade ou de ses Amazones."'

[1024] It is the sea round the South Pole that she describes in her _Elegy_ (not _Ode_). The description begins:--

'While o'er the deep in many a dreadful form, The giant Danger howls along the storm, _Furling the iron sails with numbed hands, Firm on the deck the great Adventurer stands;_ Round glitt'ring mountains hear the billows rave, And the vast ruin thunder on the wave.'

In the _Gent. Mag._ 1793, p. 197, were given extracts abusive of Johnson from some foolish letters that passed between Miss Seward and Hayley, a poet her equal in feebleness. Boswell, in his _Corrections and Additions to the First Edition_ (_ante_, i.10), corrected an error into which he had been led by Miss Seward (_ante_, i.92, note 2). She, in the _Gent. Mag._ for 1793, p.875, defended herself and attacked him. His reply is found on p.1009. He says:--'As my book was to be a _real history_, and not a _novel_, it was necessary to suppress all erroneous particulars, however entertaining.' (_Ante_, ii 467, note 4.) He continues:--'So far from having any hostile disposition towards this Lady, I have, in my _Life of Dr. Johnson_...quoted a compliment paid by him to one of her poetical pieces; and I have withheld his opinion of herself, thinking that she might not like it. I am afraid it has reached her by some other means; and thus we may account for various attacks by her on her venerable townsman since his decease...What are we to think of the scraps of letters between her and Mr. Hayley, impotently attempting to undermine the noble pedestal on which the publick opinion has placed Dr. Johnson?'

[1025] See _ante_, i.265, and iv. 174.

[1026] 'Johnson said he had once seen Mr. Stanhope at Dodsley's shop, and was so much struck with his awkward manners and appearance that he could not help asking Mr. Dodsley who he was.' Johnson's _Works_, (1787) xi.209.

[1027] Chesterfield was Secretary of State from Nov. 1746 to Feb. 1748. His letters to his son extend from 1739 to 1768.

[1028] Foote had taken off Lord Chesterfield in _The Cozeners_. Mrs. Aircastle trains her son Toby in the graces. She says to her husband:--'Nothing but grace! I wish you would read some late _Posthumous Letters_; you would then know the true value of grace.' Act ii. sc. 2.

[1029] See _ante_, p.78, note 1.

[1030] See a pamphlet entitled _Remarks on the Characters of the Court of Queen Anne_, included in Swift's _Works_, ed. 1803, vi. 163.

[1031] Carleton, according to the _Memoirs_, made his first service in the navy in 1672--seventeen years before the siege of Derry. There is no mention of this siege in the book.

[1032] 'He had obtained, by his long service, some knowledge of the practic part of an engineer.' Preface to the _Memoirs_.

[1033] Nearly 200 pages in Bohn's edition. See _ante_, i. 71, for Johnson's rapid reading.

[1034] Lord Mahon (_War of the Succession in Spain_, Appendix, p. 131) proves that a Captain Carleton really served. 'It is not impossible,' he says, 'that the MS. may have been intrusted to De Foe for the purpose of correction or revision...The _Memoirs_ are most strongly marked with internal proofs of authenticity.' Lockhart (_Life of Scott_, iii. 84) says:--'It seems to be now pretty generally believed that Carleton's _Memoirs_ were among the numberless fabrications of De Foe; but in this case (if the fact indeed be so), as in that of his _Cavalier_, he no doubt had before him the rude journal of some officer.' Dr. Burton (_Reign of Queen Anne_ ii. 173) says that MSS. in the British Museum disprove 'the possibility of De Foe's authorship.'

[1035] Lord Chesterfield (_Letters_, ii. 109) writing to his son on Nov. 29, 1748, says of Mr. Eliot:--'Imitate that application of his, which has made him know all thoroughly, and to the bottom. He does not content himself with the surface of knowledge; but works in the mine for it, knowing that it lies deep.'

[1036] The Houghton Collection was sold in 1779 by the third Earl of Orford, to the Empress of Russia for £40,555. (Walpole's _Letters_, vii. 227, note 1.)

Horace Walpole wrote on Aug. 4 of that year (_ib_. p. 235):--'Well! adieu to Houghton! about its mad master I shall never trouble myself more. From the moment he came into possession, he has undermined every act of my father that was within his reach, but, having none of that great man's sense or virtues, he could only lay wild hands on lands and houses; and since he has stript Houghton of its glory, I do not care a straw what he does with the stone or the acres.'

[1037] This museum at Alkerington near Manchester is described in the _Gent. Mag_. 1773, p.219. A proposal was made in Parliament to buy it for the British Museum. _Ib_. 1783, p. 919. On July 8, 1784, a bill enabling Lever to dispose of it by lottery passed the House of Commons. _Ib_. 1784, p.705.

[1038] Johnson defines _intuition_ as _sight of anything; immediate knowledge_; and _sagacity_ as _quickness of scent; acuteness of discovery_.

[1039] In the first edition it stands '_A gentleman_' and below instead of Mr. ----, Mr. ----. In the second edition Mr. ---- becomes Mr. ----. In the third edition _young_ is added. Young Mr. Burke is probably meant. As it stood in the second edition it might have been thought that Edmund Burke was the gentleman; the more so as Johnson often denied his want of wit.

[1040] _Hamlet_, act i. sc. 2.

[1041] See _ante_, i. 372, note 1.

[1042] Windham says (_Diary_, p. 34) that when Dr. Brocklesby made this offer 'Johnson pressed his hands and said, "God bless you through Jesus Christ, but I will take no money but from my sovereign." This, if I mistake not, was told the King through West.' Dr. Brocklesby wrote to Burke, on July 2, 1788, to make him 'an instant present of £1000, which,' he continues, 'for years past, by will, I had destined as a testimony of my regard on my decease.' Burke, accepting the present, said:--'I shall never be ashamed to have it known, that I am obliged to one who never can be capable of converting his kindness into a burthen.' Burke's _Corres._ iii.78. See _ante_, p. 263, for the just praise bestowed by Johnson on physicians in his _Life of Garth_.

[1043] See _ante_, ii. 194.

[1044] _Letters to Mrs. Thrale_, vol. ii. p 375. BOSWELL.

[1045] Rogers (_Table-Talk_, p. 45) describes him as 'a very handsome, gentlemanly, and amiable person. Mme. D'Arblay tells how one evening at Dr. Burney's home, when Signor Piozzi was playing on the piano, 'Mrs. Thrale stealing on tip-toe behind him, ludicrously began imitating him. Dr. Burney whispered to her, "Because, Madam, you have no ear yourself for music, will you destroy the attention of all who in that one point are otherwise gifted?"' Mrs. Thrale took this rebuke very well. This was her first meeting with Piozzi. It was in Mr. Thrale's life-time. _Memoirs of Dr. Burney_, ii. 110.

[1046] Dr. Johnson's letter to Sir John Hawkins, _Life_, p. 570. BOSWELL. The last time Miss Burney saw Johnson, not three weeks before his death, he told her that the day before he had seen Miss Thrale. 'I then said:--"Do you ever, Sir, hear from mother?" "No," cried he, "nor write to her. I drive her quite from my mind. If I meet with one of her letters, I burn it instantly. I have burnt all I can find. I never speak of her, and I desire never to hear of her more. I drive her, as I said, wholly from my mind."' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii. 328.

[1047] See _ante_, i. 493.

[1048] _Anec_. p. 293. BOSWELL.

[1049] 'The saying of the old philosopher who observes, "that he who wants least is most like the gods who want nothing," was a favourite sentence with Dr. Johnson, who on his own part required less attendance, sick or well, than ever I saw any human creature. Conversation was all he required to make him happy.' Piozzi's _Anec_. p.275. Miss Burney's account of the life at Streatham is generally very cheerful. I suspect that the irksome confinement described by Mrs. Piozzi was not felt by her till she became attached to Mr. Piozzi. This caused a great change in her behaviour and much unhappiness. (_Ante_, p. 138, note 4.) He at times treated her harshly. (_Ante_, p. 160, note.) Two passages in her letters to Miss Burney shew a want of feeling in her for a man who for nearly twenty years had been to her almost as a father. On Feb. 18, 1784, she writes:--'Johnson is in a sad way doubtless; yet he may still with care last another twelve-month, and every week's existence is gain to him, who, like good Hezekiah, wearies Heaven with entreaties for life. I wrote him a very serious letter the other day.' On March 23 she writes:--' My going to London would be a dreadful expense, and bring on a thousand inquiries and inconveniences--visits to Johnson and from Cator.' It is likely that in other letters there were like passages, but these letters Miss Burney 'for cogent reasons destroyed.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii. 305, 7, 8.

[1050] 'Bless'd paper credit! last and best supply! That lends corruption lighter wings to fly!'

Pope, _Moral Essays_, iii. 39.

[1051] Who has been pleased to furnish me with his remarks. BOSWELL. No doubt Malone, who says, however: 'On the whole the publick is indebted to her for her lively, though very inaccurate and artful, account of Dr. Johnson.' Prior's _Malone_, p. 364.

[1052] See _ante_, iii. 81.

[1053] _Anec._ p. 183. BOSWELL.

[1054] Hannah More. She, with her sisters, had kept a boarding-school at Bristol.

[1055] She first saw Johnson in June, 1774. According to her _Memoirs_ (i. 48) he met her 'with good humour in his countenance, and continued in the same pleasant humour the whole of the evening.' She called on him in Bolt Court. One of her sisters writes:--'Miss Reynolds told the doctor of all our rapturous exclamations [about him] on the road. He shook his scientific head at Hannah, and said, "She was a silly thing."' _Ib_. p. 49. 'He afterwards mentioned to Miss Reynolds how much he had been touched with the enthusiasm of the young authoress, which was evidently genuine and unaffected.' _Ib_. p. 50. She met him again in the spring of 1775. Her sister writes:--'The old genius was extremely jocular, and the young one very pleasant. They indeed tried which could "pepper the highest" [Goldsmith's _Retaliation_], and it is not clear to me that he was really the highest seasoner.' _Ib_. p. 54. From the Mores we know nothing of his reproof. He had himself said of 'a literary lady'--no doubt Hannah More--'I was obliged to speak to Miss Reynolds to let her know that I desired she would not flatter me so much.' _Ante_, iii.293. Miss Burney records a story she had from Mrs. Thrale, 'which,' she continues, 'exceeds, I think, in its severity all the severe things I have yet heard of Dr. Johnson's saying. When Miss More was introduced to him, she began singing his praise in the warmest manner. For some time he heard her with that quietness which a long use of praise has given him: she then redoubled her strokes, till at length he turned suddenly to her, with a stern and angry countenance, and said, "Madam, before you flatter a man so grossly to his face, you should consider whether or not your flattery is worth his having."' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, i.103. Shortly afterwards Miss Burney records (_ib_. p. 121) that Mrs. Thrale said to him:--'We have told her what you said to Miss More, and I believe that makes her afraid.' He replied:--'Well, and if she was to serve me as Miss More did, I should say the same thing to her.' We have therefore three reports of what he said--one from Mrs. Thrale indirectly, one from her directly, and the third from Malone. However severe the reproof was, the Mores do not seem to have been much touched by it. At all events they enjoyed the meeting with Johnson, and Hannah More needed a second reproof that was conveyed to her through Miss Reynolds.

[1056] _Anec._ p. 202. BOSWELL.

[1057] See _ante_, i. 40, 68, 92, 415, 481; ii. 188, 194; iii. 229; and _post_, v. 245, note 2.

[1058] _Anec._ p. 44. BOSWELL. See _ante_, p. 318, _note_ 1, where I quote the passage.

[1059] _Ib_. p. 23. BOSWELL.

[1060] _Ib_. p. 45. Mr. Hayward says:--'She kept a copious diary and notebook called _Thraliana_ from 1776 to 1809. It is now,' [1861] he continues, 'in the possession of Mr. Salusbury, who deems it of too private and delicate a character to be submitted to strangers, but has kindly supplied me with some curious passages from it.' Hayward's _Piozzi_, i. 6.

[1061] _Ib_. p. 51 [192]. BOSWELL.

[1062] _Anec._ p. 193 [51]. BOSWELL.

[1063] Johnson, says Murphy, (_Life_, p. 96) 'felt not only kindness, but zeal and ardour for his friends.' 'Who,' he asks (_ib_. p. 144), 'was more sincere and steady in his friendships?' 'Numbers,' he says (_ib_. p. 146), 'still remember with gratitude the friendship which he shewed to them with unaltered affection for a number of years.'

[1064] See _ante_, ii. 285, and iii. 440.

[1065] Johnson's _Works_, i. 152, 3.

[1066] In vol. ii. of the _Piozzi Letters_ some of these letters are given.

[1067] He gave Miss Thrale lessons in Latin. Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary,_ i. 243 and 427.

[1068] _Anec._ p. 258. BOSWELL.

[1069] George James Cholmondeley, Esq., grandson of George, third Earl of Cholmondeley, and one of the Commissioners of Excise; a gentleman respected for his abilities, and elegance of manners. BOSWELL. When I spoke to him a few years before his death upon this point, I found him very sore at being made the topic of such a debate, and very unwilling to remember any thing about either the offence or the apology. CROKER.

[1070] _Letters to Mrs. Thrale,_ vol. ii. p. 12. BOSWELL.

[1071] Mrs. Piozzi (_Anec._p. 258) lays the scene of this anecdote 'in some distant province, either Shropshire or Derbyshire, I believe.' Johnson drove through these counties with the Thrales in 1774 (_ante_, ii. 285). If the passage in the letter refers to the same anecdote--and Mrs. Piozzi does not, so far as I know, deny it--more than three years passed before Johnson was told of his rudeness. Baretti, in a MS. note on _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 12, says that the story was 'Mr. Cholmondeley's running away from his creditors.' In this he is certainly wrong; yet if Mr. Cholmondeley had run away, and others gave the same explanation of the passage, his soreness is easily accounted for.

[1072] _Anec_. p. 23. BOSWELL.

[1073] _Ib_. p. 302. BOSWELL.

[1074] _Rasselas_, chap, xvii

[1075] _Paradise Lost_, iv. 639.

[1076] _Anec_. p. 63. BOSWELL.

[1077] 'Johnson one day, on seeing an old terrier lie asleep by the fire-side at Streatham, said, "Presto, you are, if possible, a more lazy dog that I am."' Johnson's _Works_, ed. 1787, xi. 203.

[1078] Upon mentioning this to my friend Mr. Wilkes, he, with his usual readiness, pleasantly matched it with the following _sentimental anecdote_. He was invited by a young man of fashion at Paris, to sup with him and a lady, who had been for some time his mistress, but with whom he was going to part. He said to Mr. Wilkes that he really felt very much for her, she was in such distress; and that he meant to make her a present of two hundred louis-d'ors. Mr. Wilkes observed the behaviour of Mademoiselle, who sighed indeed very piteously, and assumed every pathetick air of grief; but eat no less than three French pigeons, which are as large as English partridges, besides other things. Mr. Wilkes whispered the gentleman, 'We often say in England, _Excessive sorrow is exceeding dry_, but I never heard _Excessive sorrow is exceeding hungry_. Perhaps _one_ hundred will do.' The gentleman took the hint. BOSWELL.

[1079] See _post_, p. 367, for the passage omitted.

[1080] Sir Joshua Reynolds, on account of the excellence both of the sentiment and expression of this letter, took a copy of it which he shewed to some of his friends; one of whom, who admired it, being allowed to peruse it leisurely at home, a copy was made, and found its way into the newspapers and magazines. It was transcribed with some inaccuracies. I print it from the original draft in Johnson's own hand-writing. BOSWELL. Hawkins writes (_Life_, p. 574):--'Johnson, upon being told that it was in print, exclaimed in my hearing, "I am betrayed," but soon after forgot, as he was ever ready to do all real or supposed injuries, the error that made the publication possible.'

[1081] Cowper wrote of Thurlow:--'I know well the Chancellor's benevolence of heart, and how much he is misunderstood by the world. When he was young he would do the kindest things, and at an expense to himself which at that time he could ill afford, and he would do them too in the most secret manner.' Southey's _Cowper_, vii. 128. Yet Thurlow did not keep his promise made to Cowper when they were fellow-clerks in an attorney's office. 'Thurlow, I am nobody, and shall be always nobody, and you will be chancellor. You shall provide for me when you are.' He smiled, and replied, 'I surely will.' _Ib._ i. 41. When Cowper sent him the first volume of his poems, 'he thought it not worth his while,' the poet writes, 'to return me any answer, or to take the least notice of my present.' _Ib._ xv. 176. Mr. (afterwards Sir) W. Jones, in two letters to Burke, speaks of Thurlow as the [Greek: thaerion] (beast). 'I heard last night, with surprise and affliction,' he wrote on Feb. 15, 1783,'that the [Greek: thaerion] was to continue in office. Now I can assure you from my own positive knowledge (and I know him well), that although he hates _our_ species in general, yet his particular hatred is directed against none more virulently than against Lord North, and the friends of the late excellent Marquis.' Burke's _Corres._ ii. 488, and iii. 10.

[1082] 'Scarcely had Pitt obtained possession of unbounded power when an aged writer of the highest eminence, who had made very little by his writings, and who was sinking into the grave under a load of infirmities and sorrows, wanted five or six hundred pounds to enable him, during the winter or two which might still remain to him, to draw his breath more easily in the soft climate of Italy. Not a farthing was to be obtained; and before Christmas the author of the _English Dictionary_ and of the _Lives of the Poets_ had gasped his last in the river fog and coal smoke of Fleet-street.' _Macaulay's Writings and Speeches,_ ed. 1871, p. 413. Just before Macaulay, with monstrous exaggeration, says that Gibbon, 'forced by poverty to leave his country, completed his immortal work on the shores of Lake Leman.' This poverty of Gibbon would have been 'splendour' to Johnson. Debrett's Royal Kalendar, for 1795 (p. 88), shews that there were twelve Lords of the King's Bedchamber receiving each £1000 a year, and fourteen Grooms of the Bedchamber receiving each, £500 a year. As Burns was made a gauger, so Johnson might have been made a Lord, or at least a Groom of the Bedchamber. It is not certain that Pitt heard of the application for an increased pension. Mr. Croker quotes from Thurlow's letter to Reynolds of Nov. 18, 1784:--'It was impossible for me to take the King's pleasure on the suggestion I presumed to move. I am an untoward solicitor.' Whether he consulted Pitt cannot be known. Mr. Croker notices a curious obliteration in this letter. The Chancellor had written:--'It would have suited the purpose better, if nobody had heard of it, except Dr. Johnson, you and J. Boswell.' _Boswell_ has been erased--'artfully' too, says--Mr. Croker-so that 'the sentence appears to run, "except Dr. Johnson, you, and I."' Mr. Croker, with his usual suspiciousness, suspects 'an uncandid trick.' But it is very likely that Thurlow himself made the obliteration, regardless of grammar. He might easily have thought that it would have been better still had Boswell not been in the secret.

[1083] See _ante_, iii. 176.

[1084] On June 11 Boswell and Johnson were together (_ante_, p. 293). The date perhaps should be July 11. The letter that follows next is dated July 12.

[1085] 'Even in our flight from vice some virtue lies.' FRANCIS. Horace, i. _Epistles_, I. 41.

[1086] See vol. ii. p. 258. BOSWELL.

[1087] Mrs. Johnson died in 1752. See _ante_, i. 241, note 2.

[1088] See Appendix.

[1089] Printed in his _Works_ [i. 150]. BOSWELL. See _ante_, i. 241, note 2.

[1090] He wrote to Mr. Ryland on the same day:--'Be pleased to let the whole be done with privacy that I may elude the vigilance of the papers.' _Notes and Queries_, 5th S. vii. 381.

[1091] Boileau, _Art Poétique_, chant iv.

[1092] This is probably an errour either of the transcript or the press. _Removes_ seems to be the word intended. MALONE.

[1093] See _ante_, i. 332, and _post_ p. 360.

[1094] See _ante_, p. 267.

[1095] I have heard Dr. Johnson protest that he never had quite as much as he wished of wall-fruit, except once in his life.' Piozzi's _Anec_. p. 103.

[1096] At the Essex Head, Essex-street. BOSWELL.

[1097] Juvenal, _Satires_, x. 8:--

'Fate wings with every wish the afflictive dart.'

_Vanity of Human Wishes_, l. 15.

[1098] Mr. Allen, the printer. BOSWELL. See _ante_, iii. 141, 269.

[1099] It was on this day that he wrote the prayer given below (p. 370) in which is found that striking line--'this world where much is to be done and little to be known.'

[1100] His letter to Dr. Heberden (Croker's _Boswell_, p. 789) shews that he had gone with Dr. Brocklesby to the last Academy dinner, when, as he boasted, 'he went up all the stairs to the pictures without stopping to rest or to breathe.' _Ante_, p. 270, note 2.

[1101]

Quid te exempta _levat_ spinis de pluribus una? 'Pluck out one thorn to mitigate thy pain, What boots it while so many more remain?'

FRANCIS. Horace, 2 _Epistles_, ii. 212.

[1102] See _ante_, iii. 4, note 2.

[1103] Sir Joshua's physician. He is mentioned by Goldsmith in his verses to the Miss Hornecks. Forster's _Goldsmith_, ii. 149.

[1104] How much balloons filled people's minds at this time is shewn by such entries as the following in Windham's _Diary_:-'Feb 7, 1784. Did not rise till past nine; from that time till eleven, did little more than indulge in idle reveries about balloons.' p. 3. 'July 20. The greater part of the time, till now, one o'clock, spent in foolish reveries about balloons.' p. 12. Horace Walpole wrote on Sept. 30 (_Letters_, viii. 505):--'I cannot fill my paper, as the newspapers do, with air-balloons; which though ranked with the invention of navigation, appear to me as childish as the flying kites of school-boys.' 'Do not write about the balloon,' wrote Johnson to Reynolds (_post_, p. 368), 'whatever else you may think proper to say.' In the beginning of the year he had written:--'It is very seriously true that a subscription of £800 has been raised for the wire and workmanship of iron wings.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 345.

[1105] It is remarkable that so good a Latin scholar as Johnson, should have been so inattentive to the metre, as by mistake to have written _stellas_ instead of _ignes_. BOSWELL.

[1106]

'Micat inter omnes Julium sidus, velut inter ignes Luna minores.' 'And like the Moon, the feebler fires among, Conspicuous shines the Julian star.'

FRANCIS. Horace, _Odes_, i. 12. 46.

[1107] See _ante_, iii. 209.

[1108]

'The little blood that creeps within his veins Is but just warmed in a hot fever's pains.'

DRYDEN. Juvenal, _Satires_, x. 217.

[1109] Lunardi had made, on Sept. 15, the first balloon ascent in England. _Gent. Mag_. 1784, p. 711. Johnson wrote to Mr. Ryland on Sept. 18:--'I had this day in three letters three histories of the Flying Man in the great Balloon.' He adds:--'I live in dismal solitude.' _Notes and Queries_, 5th S. vii. 381.

[1110] 'Sept. 27, 1784. Went to see Blanchard's balloon. Met Burke and D. Burke; walked with them to Pantheon to see Lunardi's. Sept. 29. About nine came to Brookes's, where I heard that the balloon had been burnt about four o'clock.' Windham's _Diary_, p. 24.

[1111] His love of London continually appears. In a letter from him to Mrs. Smart, wife of his friend the Poet, which is published in a well-written life of him, prefixed to an edition of his Poems, in 1791, there is the following sentence:-'To one that has passed so many years in the pleasures and opulence of London, there are few places that can give much delight.'

Once, upon reading that line in the curious epitaph quoted in _The Spectator;_

'Born in New-England, did in London die;'

he laughed and said, 'I do not wonder at this. It would have been strange, if born in London, he had died in New-England.' BOSWELL. Mrs. Smart was in Dublin when Johnson wrote to her. After the passage quoted by Boswell he continued:--'I think, Madam, you may look upon your expedition as a proper preparative to the voyage which we have often talked of. Dublin, though a place much worse than London, is not so bad as Iceland.' Smart's _Poems_, i. xxi. For Iceland see _ante_, i. 242. The epitaph, quoted in _The Spectator_, No. 518, begins--

Here Thomas Sapper lies interred. Ah why! Born in New-England, did in London die.'

[1112] _St. Mark_, v. 34.

[1113] There is no record of this in the _Gent. Mag_. Among the 149 persons who that summer had been sentenced to death (_ante_, p. 328) who would notice these two?

[1114] See _ante_, p. 356, note 1

[1115] Johnson wrote for him a Dedication of his _Tasso_ in 1763. _Ante_, i. 383.

[1116] There was no information for which Dr. Johnson was less grateful that than for that which concerned the weather. It was in allusion to his impatience with those who were reduced to keep conversation alive by observations on the weather, that he applied the old proverb to himself. If any one of his intimate acquaintance told him it was hot or cold, wet or dry, windy or calm, he would stop them, by saying, 'Poh! poh! you are telling us that of which none but men in a mine or a dungeon can be ignorant. Let us bear with patience, or enjoy in quiet, elementary changes, whether for the better or the worse, as they are never secrets.' BURNEY. In _The Idler_, No. II, Johnson shews that 'an Englishman's notice of the weather is the natural consequence of changeable skies and uncertain seasons... In our island every man goes to sleep unable to guess whether he shall behold in the morning a bright or cloudy atmosphere, whether his rest shall be lulled by a shower, or broken by a tempest. We therefore rejoice mutually at good weather, as at an escape from something that we feared; and mutually complain of bad, as of the loss of something that we hoped.' See _ante_, i. 332, and iv. 353.

[1117] His _Account of the Musical Performances in Commemoration of Handel_. See _ante_, p. 283.

[1118] The celebrated Miss Fanny Burney. BOSWELL.

[1119] Dr. Burney's letter must have been franked; otherwise there would have been no frugality, for each enclosure was charged as a separate letter.

[1120] He does not know, that is to say, what people of his acquaintance were in town, privileged to receive letters post free; such as members of either House of Parliament.

[1121] _Consolation_ is clearly a blunder, Malone's conjecture _mortification_ seems absurd.

[1122] See _ante_, iii. 48, and iv. 177.

[1123] Windham visited him at Ashbourne in the end of August, after the former of these letters was written. See _ante_, p. 356.

[1124] This may refer, as Mr. Croker says, to Hamilton's generous offer, mentioned _ante_, p. 244. Yet Johnson, with his accurate mind, was not likely to assign to the spring an event of the previous November.

[1125] Johnson refers to Pope's lines on Walpole:--

'Seen him I have but in his _happier hour_ Of social pleasure, ill-exchanged for power.'

_Satires. Epilogue_, i. 29.

[1126] Son of the late Peter Paradise, Esq. his Britannick Majesty's Consul at Salonica, in Macedonia, by his lady, a native of that country. He studied at Oxford, and has been honoured by that University with the degree of LL.D. He is distinguished not only by his learning and talents, but by an amiable disposition, gentleness of manners, and a very general acquaintance with well-informed and accomplished persons of almost all nations. BOSWELL.

[1127] Bookseller to his Majesty. BOSWELL.

[1128] Mr. Cruikshank attended him as a surgeon the year before. _Ante_, p. 239.

[1129]Allan Ramsay, Esq. painter to his Majesty, who died Aug. 10, 1784, in the 71st year of his age, much regretted by his friends. BOSWELL. See _ante_, p. 260.

[1130] Northcote (_Life of Reynolds_, ii. 187) says that Johnson 'most probably refers to Sir Joshua's becoming painter to the King. 'I know,' he continues, 'that Sir Joshua expected the appointment would be offered to him on the death of Ramsay, and expressed his disapprobation with regard to soliciting for it; but he was informed that it was a necessary point of etiquette, with which at last he complied.' His 'furious purposes' should seem to have been his intention to resign the Presidency of the Academy, on finding that the place was not at once given him, and in the knowledge that in the Academy there was a party against him. Taylor's _Reynolds_, ii. 448.

[1131] See _ante_, p. 348.

[1132] The Chancellor had not, it should seem, asked the King. See _ante_, p. 350, note.

[1133] The Duke of Devonshire has kindly given me the following explanation of this term:--'It was formerly the custom at some (I believe several) of the large country-houses to have dinners at which any of the neighbouring gentry and clergy might present themselves as guests without invitation. The custom had been discontinued at Chatsworth before my recollection, and so far as I am aware is now only kept-up at Wentworth, Lord Fitzwilliam's house in Yorkshire, where a few public dinners are still given annually. I believe, however, that all persons intending to be present on such occasions are now expected to give notice some days previously. Public dinners were also given formerly by the Archbishop of Canterbury, and if I am not mistaken also by the Archbishop of York. I have myself been present at a public dinner at Lambeth Palace within the last fifty years or thereabouts, and I have been at one or more such dinners at Wentworth.' Since receiving this explanation I have read the following in the second part of the _Greville Memoirs_, i. 99:--'June 1, 1838. I dined yesterday at Lambeth, at the Archbishop's public dinner, the handsomest entertainment I ever saw. There were nearly a hundred people present, all full-dressed or in uniform. Nothing can be more dignified and splendid than the whole arrangement.'

[1134] Six weeks later he was willing to hear even of balloons, so long as he got a letter. 'You,' he wrote to Mr. Sastres, 'may always have something to tell: you live among the various orders of mankind, and may make a letter from the exploits, sometimes of the philosopher, and sometimes of the pickpocket. You see some balloons succeed and some miscarry, and a thousand strange and a thousand foolish things.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 412.

[1135] See _ante_, p. 349, note.

[1136] 'He alludes probably to the place of King's Painter; which, since Burke's reforming the King's household expenses, had been reduced from £200 to £50 per annum.' Northcote's _Reynolds_, ii. 188. The place was more profitable than Johnson thought. 'It was worth having from the harvest it brought in by the multiplication of the faces of King and Queen as presents for ambassadors and potentates.' This is shewn by the following note in Sir Joshua's price-book:--'Nov. 28, 1789, remain in the Academy five Kings, four Queens; in the house two Kings and one Queen.' Taylor's _Reynolds_, ii. 449.

[1137] Mr. Nichols published in 1782 _Anecdotes of William Bowyer, Printer_. In 1812-15 he brought out this work, recast and enlarged, under the title of _Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century_. See _ante_, p. 161.

[1138] In the original (which is in the British Museum) not _hints_ but _names_.

[1139] On Nov. 4, he wrote to Mr. Ryland:--'I have just received a letter in which you tell me that you love to hear from me, and I value such a declaration too much to neglect it. To have a friend, and a friend like you, may be numbered amongst the first felicities of life; at a time when weakness either of body or mind loses the pride and the confidence of self-sufficiency, and looks round for that help which perhaps human kindness cannot give, and which we yet are willing to expect from one another. I am at this time very much dejected.... I am now preparing myself for my return, and do not despair of some more monthly meetings [_post_, Appendix C]. To hear that dear Payne is better gives me great delight. I saw the draught of the stone [over Mrs. Johnson's grave, _ante_, p. 351]. Shall I ever be able to bear the sight of this stone? In your company I hope I shall.' Mr. Morrison's _Autographs_, vol. ii.

[1140] To him as a writer might be generally applied what he said of Rochester:--'His pieces are commonly short, such as one fit of resolution would produce.' _Works_, vii. 159.

[1141] _Odes_, iv.7. _Works_, i. 137.

[1142] _Against inqitisitive and perplexing thoughts_. 'O LORD, my Maker and Protector, who hast graciously sent me into this world to work out my salvation, enable me to drive from me all such unquiet and perplexing thoughts as may mislead or hinder me in the practice of those duties which Thou hast required. When I behold the works of thy hands, and consider the course of thy providence, give me grace always to remember that thy thoughts are not my thoughts, nor thy ways my ways. And while it shall please Thee to continue me in this world, where much is to be done, and little to be known, teach me by thy Holy Spirit, to withdraw my mind from unprofitable and dangerous enquiries, from difficulties vainly curious, and doubts impossible to be solved. Let me rejoice in the light which Thou hast imparted, let me serve Thee with active zeal and humble confidence, and wait with patient expectation for the time in which the soul which Thou receivest shall be satisfied with knowledge. Grant this, O LORD, for JESUS CHRIST'S sake. Amen.' BOSWELL. _Pr. and Med._ p. 219.

[1143] _Life of Johnson_, p. 599.

[1144] Porson with admirable humour satirised Hawkins for his attack on Barber. _Gent. Mag._ 1787, p. 752, and _Porson Tracts_, p. 358. Baretti in his _Tolondron_, p. 149, says that 'Barber from his earliest youth served Johnson with the greatest affection and disinterestedness.'

[1145] Vol. ii. p. 30. BOSWELL.

[1146] I shall add one instance only to those which I have thought it incumbent on me to point out. Talking of Mr. Garrick's having signified his willingness to let Johnson have the loan of any of his books to assist him in his edition of Shakspeare [_ante_, ii. 192]; Sir John says, (p. 444,) 'Mr. Garrick knew not what risque he ran by this offer. Johnson had so strange a forgetfulness of obligations of this sort, that few who lent him books ever saw them again.' This surely conveys a most unfavourable insinuation, and has been so understood. Sir John mentions the single case of a curious edition of Politian [_ante_, i. 90], which he tells us, 'appeared to belong to Pembroke College, and which, probably, had been considered by Johnson as his own, for upwards of fifty years.' Would it not be fairer to consider this as an inadvertence, and draw no general inference? The truth is, that Johnson was so attentive, that in one of his manuscripts in my possession, he has marked in two columns, books borrowed, and books lent.

In Sir John Hawkins's compilation, there are, however, some passages concerning Johnson which have unquestionable merit. One of them I shall transcribe, in justice to a writer whom I have had too much occasion to censure, and to shew my fairness as the biographer of my illustrious friend: 'There was wanting in his conduct and behaviour, that dignity which results from a regular and orderly course of action, and by an irresistible power commands esteem. He could not be said to be a stayed man, nor so to have adjusted in his mind the balance of reason and passion, as to give occasion to say what may be observed of some men, that all they do is just, fit, and right.' [Hawkins's _Johnson_, p. 409.] Yet a judicious friend well suggests, 'It might, however, have been added, that such men are often merely just, and rigidly correct, while their hearts are cold and unfeeling; and that Johnson's virtues were of a much higher tone than those of the _stayed, orderly man_, here described.' BOSWELL.

[1147] 'Lich, a dead carcase; whence Lichfield, the field of the dead, a city in Staffordshire, so named from martyred Christians. _Salve magna parens.'_ It is curious that in the Abridgment of the _Dictionary_ he struck out this salutation, though he left the rest of the article. _Salve magna parens_, (Hail, mighty parent) is from Virgil's _Georgics_, ii. 173. The Rev. T. Twining, when at Lichfield in 1797, says:--'I visited the famous large old willow-tree, which Johnson, they say, used to kiss when he came to Lichfield.' _Recreations and Studies of a Country Clergyman of the XVIII Century_, p. 227.

[1148] The following circumstance, mutually to the honour of Johnson, and the corporation of his native city, has been communicated to me by the Reverend Dr. Vyse, from the Town-Clerk:--'Mr. Simpson has now before him, a record of the respect and veneration which the Corporation of Lichfield, in the year 1767, had for the merits and learning of Dr. Johnson. His father built the corner-house in the Market-place, the two fronts of which, towards Market and Broad-market-street, stood upon waste land of the Corporation, under a forty years' lease, which was then expired. On the 15th of August, 1767, at a common-hall of the bailiffs and citizens, it was ordered (and that without any solicitation,) that a lease should be granted to Samuel Johnson, Doctor of Laws, of the encroachments at his house, for the term of ninety-nine years, at the old rent, which was five shillings. Of which, as Town-Clerk, Mr. Simpson had the honour and pleasure of informing him, and that he was desired to accept it, without paying any fine on the occasion, which lease was afterwards granted, and the Doctor died possessed of this property.' BOSWELL.

[1149] See vol. i. p. 37. BOSWELL.

[1150] According to Miss Seward, who was Mr. White's cousin, 'Johnson once called him "the rising strength of Lichfield."' Seward's _Letters_, i. 335.

[1151] The Rev. R. Warner, who visited Lichfield in 1801, gives in his _Tour through the Northern Counties_, i. 105, a fuller account. He is clearly wrong in the date of its occurrence, and in one other matter, yet his story may in the main be true. He says that Johnson's friends at Lichfield missed him one morning; the servants said that he had set off at a very early hour, whither they knew not. Just before supper he returned. He informed his hostess of his breach of filial duty, which had happened just fifty years before on that very day. 'To do away the sin of this disobedience, I this day went,' he said, 'in a chaise to--, and going into the market at the time of high business uncovered my head, and stood with it bare an hour, before the stall which my father had formerly used, exposed to the sneers of the standers-by, and the inclemency of the weather.' This penance may recall Dante's lines,--

'Quando vivea più glorioso, disse, Liberamente nel campo di Siena, Ogni vergogna deposta, s'affisse.' '"When at his glory's topmost height," said he, "Respect of dignity all cast aside, Freely he fix'd him on Sienna's plain."'

CARY. Dante, _Purgatory_. Cant. xi. l. 133.

[1152]

'How instinct varies in the grovelling swine, Compared, half-reasoning elephant, with thine.'

Pope, _Essay on Man_, i. 221.

[1153] See _ante_, iii. 153, 296.

[1154] Mr. Burke suggested to me as applicable to Johnson, what Cicero, in his CATO MAJOR, says of _Appius:--'Intentum enim animum tanquam arcum habebat, nec languescens succumbebat senectuti_;' repeating, at the same time, the following noble words in the same passage:--_'Ita enim senectus honesta est, si se ipsa defendit, si jus suum retinet, si nemini emancipata est, si usque ad extremum vitae spiritum vindicet jus suum_.' BOSWELL. The last line runs in the original:-'si usque ad ultimum spiritum dominatur in suos.' _Cato Major_, xi. 38.

[1155]

'_atrocem_ animum Catonis.' 'Cato-- Of spirit unsubdued.'

FRANCIS. Horace, 2 _Odes_, i. 24.

[1156] Yet Baretti, who knew Johnson well, in a MS. note on _Piozzi Letters_, i.315, says:--'If ever Johnson took any delight in anything it was to converse with some old acquaintance. New people he never loved to be in company with, except ladies, when disposed to caress and flatter him.'

[1157] Johnson, thirty-four years earlier, wrote:--'I think there is some reason for questioning whether the body and mind are not so proportioned that the one can bear all that can be inflicted on the other; whether virtue cannot stand its ground as long as life, and whether a soul well principled will not be separated sooner than subdued.' _The Rambler_, No. 32. He wrote to Mrs. Thrale on Aug. 14, 1780:--'But what if I am seventy-two; I remember Sulpitius says of Saint Martin (now that's above your reading), _Est animus victor annorum, et senectuti cedere nescius_. Match me that among your young folks.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 177. On Sept. 2, 1784, he wrote to Mr. Sastres the Italian master:--'I have hope of standing the English winter, and of seeing you, and reading _Petrarch_ at Bolt-court.' _Ib_. p. 407.

[1158] _Life of Johnson_, p. 7.

[1159] It is a most agreeable circumstance attending the publication of this Work, that Mr. Hector has survived his illustrious schoolfellow so many years; that he still retains his health and spirits; and has gratified me with the following acknowledgement: 'I thank you, most sincerely thank you, for the great and long continued entertainment your _Life of Dr. Johnson_ has afforded me, and others, of my particular friends.' Mr. Hector, besides setting me right as to the verses on a sprig of Myrtle, (see vol. i. p. 92, note,) has favoured me with two English odes, written by Dr. Johnson, at an early period of his life, which will appear in my edition of his poems. BOSWELL. See _ante_, i. 16, note 1.

[1160] The editor of the _Biographia Britannica. Ante_, iii. 174.

[1161] On Dec. 23, Miss Adams wrote to a friend:--'We are all under the sincerest grief for the loss of poor Dr. Johnson. He spent three or four days with my father at Oxford, and promised to come again; as he was, he said, nowhere so happy.' _Pemb. Coll. MSS._

[1162] See _ante_, p. 293.

[1163] Mr. Strahan says (Preface, p. iv.) that Johnson, being hindered by illness from revising these prayers, 'determined to give the MSS., without revision, in charge to me. Accordingly one morning, on my visiting him by desire at an early hour, he put these papers into my hands, with instructions for committing them to the press, and with a promise to prepare a sketch of his own life to accompany them.' Whatever Johnson wished about the prayers, it passes belief that he ever meant for the eye of the world these minute accounts of his health and his feelings. Some parts indeed Mr. Strahan himself suppressed, as the Pemb. Coll. MSS. shew (_ante_, p. 84, note 4). It is curious that one portion at least fell into other hands (_ante_, ii. 476). There are other apparent gaps in the diary which raise the suspicion that it was only fragments that Mr. Strahan obtained. On the other hand Mr. Strahan had nothing to gain by the publication beyond notoriety (see his Preface, p. vi.). Dr. Adams, whose name is mentioned in the preface, expressed in a letter to the _Gent. Mag._ 1785, p. 755, his disapproval of the publication. Mr. Courtenay (_Poetical Review_, ed. 1786, p. 7), thus attacked Mr. Strahan:--

'Let priestly S--h--n in a godly fit The tale relate, in aid of Holy Writ; Though candid Adams, by whom David fell [A], Who ancient miracles sustained so well, To recent wonders may deny his aid, Nor own a pious brother of the trade.'

[A] The Rev. Dr. Adams of Oxford, distinguished for his answer to David Hume's _Essay on Miracles_.

[1164] Johnson once said to Miss Burney of her brother Charles:--'I should be glad to see him if he were not your brother; but were he a dog, a cat, a rat, a frog, and belonged to you, I must needs be glad to see him.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii. 233. On Nov. 25 she called on him. 'He let me in, though very ill. He told me he was going to try what sleeping out of town might do for him. "I remember," said he, "that my wife, when she was near her end, poor woman, was also advised to sleep out of town; and when she was carried to the lodgings that had been prepared for her, she complained that the staircase was in very bad condition, for the plaster was beaten off the walls in many places." "Oh!" said the man of the house, "that's nothing but by the knocks against it of the coffins of the poor souls that have died in the lodgings." He laughed, though not without apparent secret anguish, in telling me this.' Miss Burney continues:--'How delightfully bright are his faculties, though the poor and infirm machine that contains them seems alarmingly giving way. Yet, all brilliant as he was, I saw him growing worse, and offered to go, which, for the first time I ever remember, he did not oppose; but most kindly pressing both my hands, "Be not," he said, in a voice of even tenderness, "be not longer in coming again for my letting you go now." I assured him I would be the sooner, and was running off, but he called me back in a solemn voice, and in a manner the most energetic, said:--"Remember me in your prayers."' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii. 327. See _ante_, iii. 367, note 4.

[1165] Mr. Hector's sister and Johnson's first love. _Ante_, ii. 459.

[1166] The Rev. Dr. Taylor. BOSWELL.

[1167] See _ante_, ii. 474, and iii. 180.

[1168] 'Reliquum est, _[Greek: Sphartan elaches, tahutan khusmei].'_ Cicero, _Epistolae ad Atticum_, iv. 6. 'Spartam nactus es, hanc orna.' Erasmus, _Adagiorum Chiliades_, ed. 1559, p. 485.

[1169] Temple says of the spleen that it 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.' Temple's _Works_, ed. 1757, i. 170.

[1170] It is truly wonderful to consider the extent and constancy of Johnson's literary ardour, notwithstanding the melancholy which clouded and embittered his existence. Besides the numerous and various works which he executed, he had, at different times, formed schemes of a great many more, of which the following catalogue was given by him to Mr. Langton, and by that gentleman presented to his Majesty:

'DIVINITY.

'A small book of precepts and directions for piety; the hint taken from the directions in Morton's exercise.

'PHILOSOPHY, HISTORY, and LITERATURE in general.

'_History of Criticism_, as it relates to judging of authours, from Aristotle to the present age. An account of the rise and improvements of that art; of the different opinions of authours, ancient and modern.

'Translation of the _History of Herodian_.

'New edition of Fairfax's Translation of _Tasso_, with notes, glossary, &c.

'Chaucer, a new edition of him, from manuscripts and old editions, with various readings, conjectures, remarks on his language, and the changes it had undergone from the earliest times to his age, and from his to the present: with notes explanatory of customs, &c., and references to Boccace, and other authours from whom he has borrowed, with an account of the liberties he has taken in telling the stories; his life, and an exact etymological glossary.

'Aristotle's _Rhetorick_, a translation of it into English.

'A Collection of Letters, translated from the modern writers, with some account of the several authours.

'Oldham's Poems, with notes, historical and critical.

'Roscommon's Poems, with notes.

'Lives of the Philosophers, written with a polite air, in such a manner as may divert as well as instruct.

'History of the Heathen Mythology, with an explication of the fables, both allegorical and historical; with references to the poets.

'History of the State of Venice, in a compendious manner.

'Aristotle's _Ethicks_, an English translation of them, with notes.

'Geographical Dictionary, from the French.

'Hierocles upon Pythagoras, translated into English, perhaps with notes. This is done by Norris.

'A book of Letters, upon all kinds of subjects.

'Claudian, a new edition of his works, _cum notis variorum_, in the manner of Burman.

'Tully's Tusculan Questions, a translation of them.

'Tully's De Naturâ Deorum, a translation of those books.

'Benzo's New History of the New World, to be translated.

'Machiavel's History of Florence, to be translated.

'History of the Revival of Learning in Europe, containing an account of whatever contributed to the restoration of literature; such as controversies, printing, the destruction of the Greek empire, the encouragement of great men, with the lives of the most eminent patrons and most eminent early professors of all kinds of learning in different countries.

'A Body of Chronology, in verse, with historical notes.

'A Table of the Spectators, Tatlers, and Guardians, distinguished by figures into six degrees of value, with notes, giving the reasons of preference or degradation.

'A Collection of Letters from English authours, with a preface giving some account of the writers; with reasons for selection, and criticism upon styles; remarks on each letter, if needful.

'A Collection of Proverbs from various languages. Jan. 6,--53.

'A Dictionary to the Common Prayer, in imitation of Calmet's _Dictionary of the Bible_. March, 52.

'A Collection of Stories and Examples, like those of Valerius Maximus. Jan. 10,--53.

'From Aelian, a volume of select Stories, perhaps from others. Jan. 28,-53.

'Collection of Travels, Voyages, Adventures, and Descriptions of Countries.

'Dictionary of Ancient History and Mythology.

'Treatise on the Study of Polite Literature, containing the history of learning, directions for editions, commentaries, &c.

'Maxims, Characters, and Sentiments, after the manner of Bruyère, collected out of ancient authours, particularly the Greek, with Apophthegms.

'Classical Miscellanies, Select Translations from ancient Greek and Latin authours.

'Lives of Illustrious Persons, as well of the active as the learned, in imitation of Plutarch.

'Judgement of the learned upon English authours.

'Poetical Dictionary of the English tongue.

'Considerations upon the present state of London.

'Collection of Epigrams, with notes and observations.

'Observations on the English language, relating to words, phrases, and modes of Speech.

'Minutiae Literariae, Miscellaneous reflections, criticisms, emendations, notes.

'History of the Constitution.

'Comparison of Philosophical and Christian Morality, by sentences collected from the moralists and fathers.

'Plutarch's Lives, in English, with notes.

'POETRY and works of IMAGINATION.

'Hymn to Ignorance.

'The Palace of Sloth,--a vision.

'Coluthus, to be translated.

'Prejudice,--a poetical essay.

'The Palace of Nonsense,--a vision.'

Johnson's extraordinary facility of composition, when he shook off his constitutional indolence, and resolutely sat down to write, is admirably described by Mr. Courtenay, in his Poetical Review, which I have several times quoted:

'While through life's maze he sent a piercing view, His mind expansive to the object grew. With various stores of erudition fraught, The lively image, the deep-searching thought, Slept in repose;--but when the moment press'd, The bright ideas stood at once confess'd; Instant his genius sped its vigorous rays, And o'er the letter'd world diffus'd a blaze: As womb'd with fire the cloud electrick flies, And calmly o'er th' horizon seems to rise; Touch'd by the pointed steel, the lightning flows, And all th' expanse with rich effulgence glows.'

We shall in vain endeavour to know with exact precision every production of Johnson's pen. He owned to me, that he had written about forty sermons; but as I understood that he had given or sold them to different persons, who were to preach them as their own, he did not consider himself at liberty to acknowledge them. Would those who were thus aided by him, who are still alive, and the friends of those who are dead, fairly inform the world, it would be obligingly gratifying a reasonable curiosity, to which there should, I think, now be no objection. Two volumes of them, published since his death, are sufficiently ascertained; see vol. iii. p. 181. I have before me, in his hand-writing, a fragment of twenty quarto leaves, of a translation into English of Sallust, _De Bella Catilinario_. When it was done I have no notion; but it seems to have no very superior merit to mark it as his. Beside the publications heretofore mentioned, I am satisfied, from internal evidence, to admit also as genuine the following, which, notwithstanding all my chronological care, escaped me in the course of this work:

'Considerations on the Case of Dr. Trapp's Sermons,' + published in 1739, in the _Gentleman's Magazine_. [These Considerations were published, not in 1739, but in 1787. _Ante_, i. 140, note 5.] It is a very ingenious defence of the right of _abridging_ an authour's work, without being held as infringing his property. This is one of the nicest questions in the _Law of Literature_; and I cannot help thinking, that the indulgence of abridging is often exceedingly injurious to authours and booksellers, and should in very few cases be permitted. At any rate, to prevent difficult and uncertain discussion, and give an absolute security to authours in the property of their labours, no abridgement whatever should be permitted, till after the expiration of such a number of years as the Legislature may be pleased to fix.

But, though it has been confidently ascribed to him, I cannot allow that he wrote a Dedication to both Houses of Parliament of a book entitled _The Evangelical History Harmonized_. He was no _croaker_; no declaimer against _the times_. [See _ante_, ii. 357.] He would not have written, 'That we are fallen upon an age in which corruption is not barely universal, is universally confessed.' Nor 'Rapine preys on the publick without opposition, and perjury betrays it without inquiry.' Nor would he, to excite a speedy reformation, have conjured up such phantoms of terrour as these: 'A few years longer, and perhaps all endeavours will be in vain. We may be swallowed by an earthquake: we may be delivered to our enemies.' This is not Johnsonian.

There are, indeed, in this Dedication, several sentences constructed upon the model of those of Johnson. But the imitation of the form, without the spirit of his style, has been so general, that this of itself is not sufficient evidence. Even our newspaper writers aspire to it. In an account of the funeral of Edwin, the comedian, in _The Diary_ of Nov. 9, 1790, that son of drollery is thus described: 'A man who had so often cheered the sullenness of vacancy, and suspended the approaches of sorrow.' And in _The Dublin Evening Post_, August 16, 1791, there is the following paragraph: 'It is a singular circumstance, that, in a city like this, containing 200,000 people, there are three months in the year during which no place of publick amusement is open. Long vacation is here a vacation from pleasure, as well as business; nor is there any mode of passing the listless evenings of declining summer, but in the riots of a tavern, or the stupidity of a coffee-house.'

I have not thought it necessary to specify every copy of verses written by Johnson, it being my intention to, publish an authentick edition of all his Poetry, with notes. BOSWELL. This _Catalogue_, as Mr. Boswell calls it, is by Dr. Johnson intitled _Designs_. It seems from the hand that it was written early in life: from the marginal dates it appears that some portions were added in 1752 and 1753. CROKER.

[1171] On April 19 of this year he wrote: 'When I lay sleepless, I used to drive the night along by turning Greek epigrams into Latin. I know not if I have not turned a hundred.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 364. Forty-five years earlier he described how Boerhaave, 'when he lay whole days and nights without sleep, found no method of diverting his thoughts so effectual as meditation upon his studies, and often relieved and mitigated the sense of his torments by the recollection of what he had read, and by reviewing those stores of knowledge which he had reposited in his memory.' _Works_, vi. 284.

[1172] Mr. Cumberland assures me, that he was always treated with great courtesy by Dr. Johnson, who, in his _Letters to Mrs. Thrale_, vol. ii. p. 68 thus speaks of that learned, ingenious, and accomplished gentleman: 'The want of company is an inconvenience: but Mr. Cumberland is a million.' BOSWELL. Northcote, according to Hazlitt (_Conversations of Northcote_, p. 275), said that Johnson and his friends 'never admitted C----[Cumberland] as one of the set; Sir Joshua did not invite him to dinner. If he had been in the room, Goldsmith would have flown out of it as if a dragon had been there. I remember Garrick once saying, "D--n his _dish-clout_ face; his plays would never do, if it were not for my patching them up and acting in them."'

[1173] See _ante_, p. 64, note 2.

[1174] Dr. Parr said, "There are three great Grecians in England: Porson is the first; Burney is the third; and who is the second I need not tell"' Field's _Parr_, ii. 215.

[1175] 'Dr. Johnson,' said Parr, 'was an admirable scholar.... The classical scholar was forgotten in the great original contributor to the literature of his country.' _Ib._ i. 164. 'Upon his correct and profound knowledge of the Latin language,' he wrote, 'I have always spoken with unusual zeal and unusual confidence.' Johnson's _Parr_, iv. 679. Mrs. Piozzi (_Anec._ p. 54) recounts a 'triumph' gained by Johnson in a talk on Greek literature.

[1176] _Ante_, iii. 172.

[1177] We must smile at a little inaccuracy of metaphor in the Preface to the _Transactions_, which is written by Mr. Burrowes. The _critick of the style of_ JOHNSON having, with a just zeal for literature, observed, that the whole nation are called on to exert themselves, afterwards says: 'They are _called on_ by every _tye_ which can have a laudable influence on the heart of man.' BOSWELL.

[1178] Johnson's wishing to unite himself with this rich widow, was much talked of, but I believe without foundation. The report, however, gave occasion to a poem, not without characteristical merit, entitled, 'Ode to Mrs. Thrale, by Samuel Johnson, LL.D. on their supposed approaching Nuptials; printed for Mr. Faulder in Bond-street.' I shall quote as a specimen the first three stanzas:--

'If e'er my fingers touch'd the lyre, In satire fierce, in pleasure gay; Shall not my THRALIA'S smiles inspire? Shall Sam refuse the sportive lay? My dearest Lady! view your slave, Behold him as your very _Scrub_; Eager to write, as authour grave, Or govern well, the brewing-tub. To rich felicity thus raised, My bosom glows with amorous fire; Porter no longer shall be praised, 'Tis I MYSELF am _Thrale's Entire_'

[1179] See _ante_, ii. 44.

[1180] '_Higledy piggledy_,--Conglomeration and confusion.

'_Hodge-podge_,--A culinary mixture of heterogeneous ingredients: applied metaphorically to all discordant combinations.

'_Tit for Tat_,--Adequate retaliation.

'_Shilly Shally_,--Hesitation and irresolution.

'_Fee! fau! fum!--Gigantic intonations.

_Rigmarole_,-Discourse, incoherent and rhapsodical.

'_Crincum-crancum_,--Lines of irregularity and involution.

'_Dingdong_--Tintinabulary chimes, used metaphorically to signify dispatch and vehemence.' BOSWELL. In all the editions that I have examined the sentence in the text beginning with 'annexed,' and ending with 'concatenation,' is printed as if it were Boswell's. It is a quotation from vol. ii. p. 93 of Colman's book. For _Scrub_, see _ante_, iii. 70, note 2.

[1181] See _ante_, iii. 173.

[1182] _History of America_, vol. i. quarto, p. 332. BOSWELL.

[1183] Gibbon (_Misc. Works_, i. 219) thus writes of his own style:--'The style of an author should be the image of his mind, but the choice and command of language is the fruit of exercise. Many experiments were made before I could hit the middle tone between a dull chronicle and a rhetorical declamation; three times did I compose the first chapter, and twice the second and third, before I was tolerably satisfied with their effect.' See _ante_, p. 36, note 1.

[1184] _Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_, vol. i. chap. iv. BOSWELL.

[1185] Macaulay (_Essays_, ed. 1874, iv. 157) gives a yet better example of her Johnsonian style, though, as I have shewn (_ante_, p. 223, note 5), he is wrong in saying that Johnson's hand can be seen.

[1186] _Cecilia_, Book. vii. chap. i. [v.] BOSWELL.

[1187] The passage which I quote is taken from that gentleman's _Elements of Orthoepy_; containing a distinct View of the whole Analogy of the ENGLISH LANGUAGE, so far as relates to _Pronunciation, Accent, and Quantity_, London, 1784. I beg leave to offer my particular acknowledgements to the authour of a work of uncommon merit and great utility. I know no book which contains, in the same compass, more learning, polite literature, sound sense, accuracy of arrangement, and perspicuity of expression. BOSWELL.

[1188] That collection was presented to Dr. Johnson, I believe by its authours; and I heard him speak very well of it. BOSWELL. _The Mirror_ was published in 1779-80; by 1793 it reached its ninth edition. For an account of it see Appendix DD. to Forbes's _Beattie_. Henry Mackenzie, the author of _The Man of Feeling_, was the chief contributor as well as the conductor of the paper. He is given as the author of No. 16 in Lynam's edition, p. 1.

[1189] The name of Vicesimus Knox is now scarcely known. Yet so late as 1824 his collected _Works_ were published in seven octavo volumes. The editor says of his _Essays_ (i. iii):--'In no department of the _Belles Lettres_ has any publication, excepting the _Spectator_, been so extensively circulated. It has been translated into most of the European languages.' See _ante_, i. 222, note 1; iii. 13, note 3; and iv. 330.

[1190] _Lucretius_, iii. 6.

[1191] It were to be wished, that he had imitated that great man in every respect, and had not followed the example of Dr. Adam Smith [_ante_, iii. 13, note 1] in ungraciously attacking his venerable _Alma Mater_ Oxford. It must, however, be observed, that he is much less to blame than Smith: he only objects to certain particulars; Smith to the whole institution; though indebted for much of his learning to an exhibition which he enjoyed for many years at Baliol College. Neither of them, however, will do any hurt to the noblest university in the world. While I animadvert on what appears to me exceptionable in some of the works of Dr. Knox, I cannot refuse due praise to others of his productions; particularly his sermons, and to the spirit with which he maintains, against presumptuous hereticks, the consolatory doctrines peculiar to the Christian Revelation. This he has done in a manner equally strenuous and conciliating. Neither ought I to omit mentioning a remarkable instance of his candour: Notwithstanding the wide difference of our opinions, upon the important subject of University education, in a letter to me concerning this Work, he thus expresses himself: 'I thank you for the very great entertainment your _Life of Johnson_ gives me. It is a most valuable work. Yours is a new species of biography. Happy for Johnson, that he had so able a recorder of his wit and wisdom.' BOSWELL.

[1192] Dr. Knox, in his _Moral and Literary_ abstraction, may be excused for not knowing the political regulations of his country. No senator can be in the hands of a bailiff. BOSWELL.

[1193] It is entitled _A Continuation of Dr. J--n's Criticism on the Poems of Gray_. The following is perhaps the best passage:--'On some fine evening Gray had seen the moon shining on a tower such as is here described. An owl might be peeping out from the ivy with which it was clad. Of the observer the station might be such that the owl, now emerged from the mantling, presented itself to his eye in profile, skirting with the Moon's limb. All this is well. The perspective is striking; and the picture well defined. But the poet was not contented. He felt a desire to enlarge it; and in executing his purpose gave it accumulation without improvement. The idea of the Owl's _complaining_ is an artificial one; and the views on which it proceeds absurd. Gray should have seen, that it but ill befitted the _Bird of Wisdom_ to complain to the Moon of an intrusion which the Moon could no more help than herself.' p. 17. Johnson wrote of this book:--'I know little of it, for though it was sent me I never cut the leaves open. I had a letter with it representing it to me as my own work; in such an account to the publick there may be humour, but to myself it was neither serious nor comical. I suspect the writer to be wrong-headed.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 289. 'I was told,' wrote Walpole (_Letters_, viii. 376), 'it would divert me, that it seems to criticise Gray, but really laughs at Johnson. I sent for it and skimmed it over, but am not at all clear what it means--no recommendation of anything. I rather think the author wishes to be taken by Gray's admirers for a ridiculer of Johnson, and by the tatter's for a censurer of Gray.' '"The cleverest parody of the Doctor's style of criticism," wrote Sir Walter Scott, "is by John Young of Glasgow, and is very capital."' _Croker Corres_, ii. 34.

[1194] See _ante_, iv. 59, for Burke's description of Croft's imitation.

[1195] See _ante_, ii. 465.

[1196] H.S.E.

MICHAEL JOHNSON,

Vir impavidus, constans, animosus, periculorum immemor, laborum patientissimus; fiducia christiana fortis, fervidusque; paterfamilias apprime strenuus; bibliopola admodum peritus; mente et libris et negotiis exculta; animo ita firmo, ut, rebus adversis diu conflictatus, nec sibi nec suis defuerit; lingua sic temperata, ut ei nihil quod aures vel pias, vel castas laesisset, aut dolor, vel voluptas unquam expresserit.

Natus Cubleiae, in agro Derbiensi,

Anno MDCLVI.

Obiit MDCCXXXI.

Apposita est SARA, conjux,

Antiqua FORDORUM gente oriunda; quam domi sedulam, foris paucis notam; nulli molestam, mentis acumine et judicii subtilitate praecellentem; aliis multum, sibi parum indulgentem: aeternitati semper attentam, omne fere virtutis nomen commendavit.

Nata Nortoniae Regis, in agro Varvicensi, Anno MDCLXIX;

Obiit MDCCLIX.

Cum NATHANAELE, illorum filio, qui natus MDCCXII, cum vires et animi et corporis multa pollicerentur, anno MDCCXXXVII, vitam brevem pia morte finivit. Johnson's _Works_, i. 150.

[1197] Hawkins (_Life_, p. 590) says that he asked that the stone over his own grave 'might be so placed as to protect his body from injury.' Harwood (_History of Lichfield_, p. 520) says that the stone in St. Michael's was removed in 1796, when the church was paved. A fresh one with the old inscriptions was placed in the church on the hundredth anniversary of Johnson's death by Robert Thorp, Esq., of Buxton Road House, Macclesfield. The Rev. James Serjeantson, Rector of St. Michael's, suggests to me that the first stone was never set up. It is, he says, unlikely that such a memorial within a dozen years was treated so unworthily. Moreover in 1841 and again in 1883, during reparations of the church, a very careful search was made for it, but without result. There may have been, he thinks, some difficulty in finding the exact place of interment. The matter may have stood over till it was forgotten, and the mason, whose receipted bill shews that he was paid for the stone, may have used it for some other purpose.

[1198] See _ante_, i. 241, and iv. 351.

[1199] 'He would also,' says Hawkins (_Life_, p. 579), 'have written in Latin verse an epitaph for Mr. Garrick, but found himself unequal to the task of original poetic composition in that language.'

[1200] In his _Life of Browne_, Johnson wrote:--'The time will come to every human being when it must be known how well he can bear to die; and it has appeared that our author's fortitude did not desert him in the great hour of trial.' _Works_, vi. 499.

[1201] A Club in London, founded by the learned and ingenious physician, Dr. Ash, in honour of whose name it was called Eumelian, from the Greek [Greek: Eumelias]; though it was warmly contended, and even put to a vote, that it should have the more obvious appellation of _Fraxinean_, from the Latin. BOSWELL. This club, founded in 1788, met at the Blenheim Tavern, Bond-street. Reynolds, Boswell, Burney, and Windham were members. Rose's _Biog. Dict._ ii. 240. [Greek: Eummeliaes] means _armed with good ashen spear_.

[1202] Mrs. Thrale's _Collection_, March 10,1784. Vol. ii. p. 350. BOSWELL.

[1203] Hawkins's _Life of Johnson_, p. 583.

[1204] See what he said to Mr. Malone, p. 53 of this volume. BOSWELL.

[1205] See _ante_, i. 223, note 2.

[1206] _Epistle to the Romans_, vii. 23.

[1207] 'Johnson's passions,' wrote Reynolds, 'were like those of other men, the difference only lay in his keeping a stricter watch over himself. In petty circumstances this [? his] wayward disposition appeared, but in greater things he thought it worth while to summon his recollection and be always on his guard.... [To them that loved him not] as rough as winter; to those who sought his love as mild as summer--many instances will readily occur to those who knew him intimately of the guard which he endeavoured always to keep over himself.' Taylor's _Reynolds_, ii. 460. See _ante_, i. 94, 164, 201, and iv. 215.

[1208] _Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides_, 3d ed. p. 209. [_Post_, v. 211.] On the same subject, in his Letter to Mrs. Thrale, dated Nov. 29, 1783, he makes the following just observation:--'Life, to be worthy of a rational being, must be always in progression; we must always purpose to do more or better than in time past. The mind is enlarged and elevated by mere purposes, though they end as they began [in the original, _begin_], by airy contemplation. We compare and judge, though we do not practise.' BOSWELL.

[1209] _Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides_, p. 374. [_Post_, v. 359.] BOSWELL.

[1210] _Psalm_ xix. 13.

[1211] _Pr. and Med._ p.47. BOSWELL.

[1212] _Ib._ p. 68 BOSWELL

[1213] _Ib._ p. 84 BOSWELL

[1214] _Ib._ p. 120. BOSWELL.

[1215] Pr. and Med. p. 130. BOSWELL.

[1216] Dr. Johnson related, with very earnest approbation, a story of a gentleman, who, in an impulse of passion, overcame the virtue of a young woman. When she said to him, 'I am afraid we have done wrong!' he answered, 'Yes, we have done wrong;--for I would not _debauch her mind_.' BOSWELL.

[1217] _St. John_, viii. 7.

[1218] _Pr. and Med._ p. 192. BOSWELL.

[1219] See _ante_, iii. 155.

[1220] Boswell, on Feb. 10, 1791, describing to Malone the progress of his book, says:--'I have now before me p. 488 [of vol. ii.] in print; and 923 pages of the copy [MS.] only is exhausted, and there remains 80, besides the _death_; as to which I shall be concise, though solemn. Pray how shall I wind up? Shall I give the _character_ from my _Tour_ somewhat enlarged?' Croker's _Boswell_, p. 829. Mr. Croker is clearly in error in saying (_ib._ p. 800) that 'Mr. Boswell's absence and the jealousy between him and some of Johnson's other friends prevented his being able to give the particulars which he (Mr. Croker) has supplied in the Appendix.' In this Appendix is Mr. Hoole's narrative which Boswell had seen and used (_post_, p. 406).

[1221] _Psalm_ lxxxii. 7.

[1222] See Appendix E.

[1223] 'On being asked in his last illness what physician he had sent for, "Dr. Heberden," replied he, "_ultimus Romanorum_, the last of the learned physicians."' Seward's _Biographiana_, p. 601.

[1224] Mr. Green related that when some of Johnson's friends desired that Dr. Warren should be called in, he said they might call in whom they pleased; and when Warren was called, at his going away Johnson said, 'You have come in at the eleventh hour, but you shall be paid the same with your fellow-labourers. Francis, put into Dr. Warren's coach a copy of the _English Poets_.' CROKER. Dr. Warren ten years later attended Boswell in his last illness. _Letters of Boswell_, p. 355. He was the great-grandfather of Col. Sir Charles Warren, G.C.M.G., F.R.S., Chief Commissioner of Police.

[1225] This bold experiment, Sir John Hawkins has related in such a manner as to suggest a charge against Johnson of intentionally hastening his end; a charge so very inconsistent with his character in every respect, that it is injurious even to refute it, as Sir John has thought it necessary to do. It is evident, that what Johnson did in hopes of relief, indicated an extraordinary eagerness to retard his dissolution. BOSWELL. Murphy (_Life_, p. 122) says that 'for many years, when Johnson was not disposed to enter into the conversation going forward, whoever sat near his chair might hear him repeating from Shakespeare [_Measure for Measure_, act iii. sc. i]:--

"Ay, but to die and go we know not where; To lie in cold obstruction and to rot; This sensible warm motion to become A kneaded clot; and the delighted spirit To bathe in fiery floods."

And from Milton [_Paradise Lost_, ii. 146]:--

"Who would lose Though full of pain this intellectual being?"'

Johnson, the year before, at a time when he thought that he must submit to the surgeon's knife (_ante_, p. 240), wrote to Mrs. Thrale:--'You would not have me for fear of pain perish in putrescence. I shall, I hope, with trust in eternal mercy lay hold of the possibility of life which yet remains.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 312. Hawkins records (_Life_, p. 588) that one day Johnson said to his doctor:--'How many men in a year die through the timidity of those whom they consult for health! I want length of life, and you fear giving me pain, which I care not for.' Another day, 'when Mr. Cruikshank scarified his leg, he cried out, "Deeper, deeper. I will abide the consequence; you are afraid of your reputation, but that is nothing to me." To those about him, he said, "You all pretend to love me, but you do not love me so well as I myself do." '_Ib_. p. 592. Windham (_Diary_, p. 32) says that he reproached Heberden with being _timidorum timidissimus_. Throughout he acted up to what he had said:--'I will be conquered, I will not capitulate.' _Ante_, P. 374.

[1226] Macbeth, act v. sc. 3.

[1227] Satires, x. 356. Paraphrased by Johnson in The Vanity of Human Wishes, at the lines beginning:--

'Pour forth thy fervours for a healthful mind, Obedient passions and a will resigned.'

[1228] Johnson, three days after his stroke of palsy (ante, p. 230), wrote:--'When I waked, I found Dr. Brocklesby sitting by me. He fell to repeating Juvenal's ninth satire; but I let him see that the province was mine.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 274.

[1229] Johnson, on his way to Scotland, 'changed horses,' he wrote, 'at Darlington, where Mr. Cornelius Harrison, a cousin-german of mine, was perpetual curate. He was the only one of my relations who ever rose in fortune above penury, or in character above neglect.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 105. Malone, in a note to later editions, shews that Johnson shortly before his death was trying to discover some of his poor relations.

[1230] Mr. Windham records (_Diary_, p. 28) that the day before Johnson made his will 'he recommended Frank to him as to one who had will and power to protect him.' He continues, 'Having obtained my assent to this, he proposed that Frank should be called in; and desiring me to take him by the hand in token of the promise, repeated before him the recommendation he had just made of him, and the promise I had given to attend to it.

[1231] Johnson wrote five years earlier to Mrs. Thrale about her husband's will:--'Do not let those fears prevail which you know to be unreasonable; a will brings the end of life no nearer.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 72.

[1232] 'IN THE NAME OF GOD. AMEN. I, SAMUEL JOHNSON, being in full possession of my faculties, but fearing this night may put an end to my life, do ordain this my last Will and Testament. I bequeath to GOD, a soul polluted with many sins, but I hope purified by JESUS CHRIST. I leave seven hundred and fifty pounds in the hands of Bennet Langton, Esq.; three hundred pounds in the hands of Mr. Barclay and Mr. Perkins, brewers; one hundred and fifty pounds in the hands of Dr. Percy, Bishop of Dromore; one thousand pounds, three _per cent._ annuities, in the publick funds; and one hundred pounds now lying by me in ready money: all these before-mentioned sums and property I leave, I say, to Sir Joshua Reynolds, Sir John Hawkins, and Dr. William Scott, of Doctors Commons, in trust for the following uses:--That is to say, to pay to the representatives of the late William Innys, bookseller, in St, Paul's Church-yard, the sum of two hundred pounds; to Mrs. White, my female servant, one hundred pounds stock in the three _per cent_. annuitites aforesaid. The rest of the aforesaid sums of money and property, together with my books, plate, and household furniture, I leave to the before-mentioned Sir Joshua Reynolds, Sir John Hawkins, and Dr. William Scott, also in trust, to the use of Francis Barber, my man-servant, a negro, in such a manner as they shall judge most fit and available to his benefit. And I appoint the aforesaid Sir Joshua Reynolds, Sir John Hawkins, and Dr. William Scott, sole executors of this my last will and testament, hereby revoking all former wills and testaments whatever. In witness whereof I hereunto subscribe my name, and affix my seal, this eighth day of December, 1784.

'Sam Johnson, (L.S.)

'Signed, scaled, published, declared, and delivered, by the said testator, as his last will and testament, in the presence of us, the word two being first inserted in the opposite page.

'GEORGE STRAHAN

'JOHN DESMOULINS

'By way of Codicil to my last Will and Testament, I, SAMUEL JOHNSON, give, devise, and bequeath, my messuage or tenement situate at Litchfield, in the county of Stafford, with the appertenances, in the tenure or occupation of Mrs. Bond, of Lichfield aforesaid, or of Mr. Hinchman, her under-tenant, to my executors, in trust, to sell and dispose of the same; and the money arising from such sale I give and bequeath as follows, viz. to Thomas and Benjamin, the sons of Fisher Johnson, late of Leicester, and ----- Whiting, daughter of Thomas Johnson [F-1], late of Coventry, and the grand-daughter of the said Thomas Johnson, one full and equal fourth part each; but in case there shall be more grand-daughters than one of the said Thomas Johnson, living at the time of my decease, I give and bequeath the part or share of that one to and equally between such grand-daughters. I give and bequeath to the Rev. Mr. Rogers, of Berkley, near Froom, in the county of Somerset, the sum of one hundred pounds, requesting him to apply the same towards the maintenance of Elizabeth Herne, a lunatick [F-2]. I also give and bequeath to my god-children, the son and daughter of Mauritius Lowe [F-3], painter, each of them, one hundred pounds of my stock in the three _per cent_, consolidated annuities, to be applied and disposed of by and at the discretion of my Executors, in the education or settlement in the world of them my said legatees. Also I give and bequeath to Sir John Hawkins, one of my Executors, the Annales Ecclesiastici of Baronius, and Holinshed's and Stowe's Chronicles, and also an octavo Common Prayer-Book. To Bennet Langton, Esq. I give and bequeath my Polyglot Bible. To Sir Joshua Reynolds, my great French Dictionary, by Martiniere, and my own copy of my folio English Dictionary, of the last revision. To Dr. William Scott, one of my Executors, the Dictionnaire de Commerce, and Lectius's edition of the Greek poets. To Mr. Windham [F-4], Poetae Graeci Heroici per Henricum Stephanum. To the Rev. Mr. Strahan, vicar of Islington, in Middlesex, Mill's Greek Testament, Beza's Greek Testament, by Stephens, all my Latin Bibles, and my Greek Bible, by Wechelius. To Dr. Heberden, Dr. Brocklesby, Dr. Butter, and Mr. Cruikshank, the surgeon who attended me, Mr. Holder, my apothecary, Gerard Hamilton, Esq., Mrs. Gardiner [F-5], of Snow-hill, Mrs. Frances Reynolds, Mr. Hoole, and the Reverend Mr. Hoole, his son, each a book at their election, to keep as a token of remembrance. I also give and bequeath to Mr. John Desmoulins [F-6], two hundred pounds consolidated three _per cent_, annuities: and to Mr. Sastres, the Italian master [F-7], the sum of five pounds, to be laid out in books of piety for his own use. And whereas the said Bennet Langton hath agreed, in consideration of the sum of seven hundred and fifty pounds, mentioned in my Will to be in his hands, to grant and secure an annuity of seventy pounds payable during the life of me and my servant, Francis Barber, and the life of the survivor of us, to Mr. George Stubbs, in trust for us; my mind and will is, that in case of my decease before the said agreement shall be perfected, the said sum of seven hundred and fifty pounds, and the bond for securing the said sum, shall go to the said Francis Barber; and I hereby give and bequeath to him the same, in lieu of the bequest in his favour, contained in my said Will. And I hereby empower my Executors to deduct and retain all expences that shall or may be incurred in the execution of my said Will, or of this Codicil thereto, out of such estate and effects as I shall die possessed of. All the rest, residue, and remainder, of my estate and effects, I give and bequeath to my said Executors, in trust for the said Francis Barber, his Executors and Administrators. Witness my hand and seal, this ninth day of December, 1784.

'SAM. JOHNSON, (L. S.)

'Signed, sealed, published, declared, and delivered, by the said Samuel Johnson, as, and for a Codicil to his last Will and Testament, in the presence of us, who, in his presence, and at his request, and also in the presence of each other, have hereto subscribed our names as witnesses.

'JOHN COPLEY.

'WILLIAM GIBSON.

'HENRY COLE.'

Upon these testamentary deeds it is proper to make a few observations.

His express declaration with his dying breath as a Christian, as it had been often practised in such solemn writings, was of real consequence from this great man; for the conviction of a mind equally acute and strong, might well overbalance the doubts of others, who were his contemporaries. The expression _polluted_, may, to some, convey an impression of more than ordinary contamination; but that is not warranted by its genuine meaning, as appears from _The Rambler_, No. 42[F-8]. The same word is used in the will of Dr. Sanderson, Bishop of Lincoln [F-9], who was piety itself.

His legacy of two hundred pounds to the representatives of Mr. Innys, bookseller, in St. Paul's Church-yard [F-10], proceeded from a very worthy motive. He told Sir John Hawkins, that his father having become a bankrupt, Mr. Innys had assisted him with money or credit to continue his business. 'This, (said he,) I consider as an obligation on me to be grateful to his descendants [F-11].'

The amount of his property proved to be considerably more than he had supposed it to be. Sir John Hawkins estimates the bequest to Francis Barber at a sum little short of fifteen hundred pounds, including an annuity of seventy pounds to be paid to him by Mr. Langton, in consideration of seven hundred and fifty pounds, which Johnson had lent to that gentleman. Sir John seems not a little angry at this bequest, and mutters 'a caveat against ostentatious bounty and favour to negroes [F-12].' But surely when a man has money entirely of his own acquisition, especially when he has no near relations, he may, without blame, dispose of it as he pleases, and with great propriety to a faithful servant. Mr. Barber, by the recommendation of his master, retired to Lichfield, where he might pass the rest of his days in comfort.

It has been objected that Johnson has omitted many of his best friends, when leaving books to several as tokens of his last remembrance. The names of Dr. Adams, Dr. Taylor [F-13], Dr. Burney, Mr. Hector, Mr. Murphy, the Authour of this Work, and others who were intimate with him, are not to be found in his Will. This may be accounted for by considering, that as he was very near his dissolution at the time, he probably mentioned such as happened to occur to him; and that he may have recollected, that he had formerly shewn others such proofs of his regard, that it was not necessary to crowd his Will with their names. Mrs. Lucy Porter was much displeased that nothing was left to her; but besides what I have now stated, she should have considered, that she had left nothing to Johnson by her Will, which was made during his life-time, as appeared at her decease.

His enumerating several persons in one group, and leaving them 'each a book at their election,' might possibly have given occasion to a curious question as to the order of choice, had they not luckily fixed on different books. His library, though by no means handsome in its appearance, was sold by Mr. Christie, for two hundred and forty-seven pounds, nine shillings [F-14]; many people being desirous to have a book which had belonged to Johnson. In many of them he had written little notes: sometimes tender memorials of his departed wife; as, 'This was dear Tetty's book:' sometimes occasional remarks of different sorts. Mr. Lysons, of Clifford's Inn, has favoured me with the two following:

In _Holy Rules and Helps to Devotion_, by Bryan Duppa, Lord Bishop of Winton, '_Preces quidam (? quidem) videtur diligenter tractasse; spero non inauditus (? inauditas).'_

In _The Rosicrucian infallible Axiomata_, by John Heydon, Gent., prefixed to which are some verses addressed to the authour, signed Ambr. Waters, A.M. Coll. Ex. Oxon. '_These Latin verses were written to Hobbes by Bathurst, upon his Treatise on Human Nature, and have no relation to the book.--An odd fraud_.'--BOSWELL. [Note: See Appendix F for notes on this footnote.]

[1233] 'He burned,' writes Mrs. Piozzi, 'many letters in the last week, I am told, and those written by his mother drew from him a flood of tears. Mr. Sastres saw him cast a melancholy look upon their ashes, which he took up and examined to see if a word was still legible.'--_Piozzi Letters_, ii. 383.

[1234] Boswell in his _Hebrides_ (_post_, v. 53) says that Johnson, starting northwards on his tour, left in a drawer in Boswell's house 'one volume of a pretty full and curious _Diary of his Life_, of which I have,' he continues, 'a few fragments.' The other volume, we may conjecture, Johnson took with him, for Boswell had seen both, and apparently seen them only once. He mentions (_ante_, i. 27) that these 'few fragments' had been transferred to him by the residuary legatee (Francis Barber). One large fragment, which was published after Barber's death, he could never have seen, for he never quotes from it (_ante_, i. 35, note 1).

[1235] One of these volumes, Sir John Hawkins informs us, he put into his pocket; for which the excuse he states is, that he meant to preserve it from falling into the hands of a person whom he describes so as to make it sufficiently clear who is meant; 'having strong reasons (said he,) to suspect that this man might find and make an ill use of the book.' Why Sir John should suppose that the gentleman alluded to would act in this manner, he has not thought fit to explain. But what he did was not approved of by Johnson; who, upon being acquainted of it without delay by a friend, expressed great indignation, and warmly insisted on the book being delivered up; and, afterwards, in the supposition of his missing it, without knowing by whom it had been taken, he said, 'Sir, I should have gone out of the world distrusting half mankind.' Sir John next day wrote a letter to Johnson, assigning reasons for his conduct; upon which Johnson observed to Mr. Langton, 'Bishop Sanderson could not have dictated a better letter. I could almost say, _Melius est sic penituisse quam non errâsse_.' The agitation into which Johnson was thrown by this incident, probably made him hastily burn those precious records which must ever be regretted. BOSWELL. According to Mr. Croker, Steevens was the man whom Hawkins said that he suspected. Porson, in his witty _Panegyrical Epistle on Hawkins v. Johnson_ (_Gent. Mag._ 1787, pp. 751-3, and _Porson Tracts_, p. 341), says:--'I shall attempt a translation [of _Melius est_, &c.] for the benefit of your mere English readers:--_There is more joy over a sinner that repenteth than over a just person that needeth no repentance_. And we know from an authority not to be disputed (Hawkins's _Life_, p. 406) that _Johnson was a great lover of penitents_.

"God put it in the mind to take it hence, That thou might'st win the more thy [Johnson's] love, Pleading so wisely in excuse of it."

[1236] _Henry IV_, act iv. sc. 5.

[1237] 'Tibullus addressed Cynthia in this manner:--

"_Te spectem, suprema, mihi cum venerit hora, Te teneam moriens deficiente mamu. Lib. i. El. I. 73.

Before my closing eyes dear Cynthia stand, Held weakly by my fainting, trembling hand."' Johnson's Works, iv. 35.

[1238] Windham was scarcely a statesman as yet, though for a few months of the year before he had been Chief Secretary for Ireland (_ante_, p 200). He was in Parliament, but he had never spoken. His _Diary_ shews that he had no 'important occupations.' On Dec. 12, for instance, he records (p. 30):--'Came down about ten; read reviews, wrote to Mrs. Siddons, and then went to the ice; came home only in time to dress and go to my mother's to dinner.' See _ante_, p. 356, for his interest in balloons.

[1239] 'My father,' writes Miss Burney, 'saw him once while I was away, and carried Mr. Burke with him, who was desirous of paying his respects to him once more in person. He rallied a little while they were there; and Mr. Burke, when they left him, said to my father:--"His work is almost done, and well has he done it."' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii. 333. Burke, in 1792, said in Parliament that 'Dr. Johnson's virtues were equal to his transcendent talents, and his friendship he valued as the greatest consolation and happiness of his life.' _Parl. Debates_, xxx. 109.

[1240] On the same undoubted authority, I give a few articles, which should have been inserted in chronological order; but which, now that they are before me, I should be sorry to omit:--

'In 1736, Dr. Johnson had a particular inclination to have been engaged as an assistant to the Reverend Mr. Budworth, then head master of the Grammar-school, at Brewood, in Staffordshire, "an excellent person, who possessed every talent of a perfect instructor of youth, in a degree which, (to use the words of one of the brightest ornaments of literature, the Reverend Dr. Hurd, Bishop of Worcester,) has been rarely found in any of that profession since the days of Quintilian." Mr. Budworth, "who was less known in his life-time, from that obscure situation to which the caprice of fortune oft condemns the most accomplished characters, than his highest merit deserved," had been bred under Mr. Blackwell [Blackwall], at Market Bosworth, where Johnson was some time an usher [_ante_, i. 84]; which might naturally lead to the application. Mr. Budworth was certainly no stranger to the learning or abilities of Johnson; as he more than once lamented his having been under the necessity of declining the engagement, from an apprehension that the paralytick affection, under which our great Philologist laboured through life, might become the object of imitation or of ridicule, among his pupils.' Captain Budworth, his grandson, has confirmed to me this anecdote.

'Among the early associates of Johnson, at St. John's Gate, was Samuel Boyse [G-1], well known by his ingenious productions; and not less noted for his imprudence. It was not unusual for Boyse to be a customer to the pawnbroker. On one of these occasions, Dr. Johnson collected a sum of money to redeem his friend's clothes, which in two days after were pawned again. "The sum, (said Johnson,) was collected by sixpences, at a time when to me sixpence was a serious consideration [G-2]."

'Speaking one day of a person for whom he had a real friendship, but in whom vanity was somewhat too predominant, he observed, that "Kelly [G-3] was so fond of displaying on his side-board the plate which he possessed, that he added to it his spurs. For my part, (said he,) I never was master of a pair of spurs, but once; and they are now at the bottom of the ocean. By the carelessness of Boswell's servant, they were dropped from the end of the boat, on our return from the Isle of Sky [G-4]."'

The late Reverend Mr. Samuel Badcock [G-5], having been introduced to Dr. Johnson, by Mr. Nichols, some years before his death, thus expressed himself in a letter to that gentleman:--

'How much I am obliged to you for the favour you did me in introducing me to Dr. Johnson! _Tantùm vìdi Virgilium_ [G-6]. But to have seen him, and to have received a testimony of respect from him, was enough. I recollect all the conversation, and shall never forget one of his expressions. Speaking of Dr. P---- [Priestley], (whose writings, I saw, he estimated at a low rate,) he said, "You have proved him as deficient in _probity_ as he is in learning [G-7]." I called him an "Index-scholar [G-8];" but he was not willing to allow him a claim even to that merit. He said, that "he borrowed from those who had been borrowers themselves, and did not know that the mistakes he adopted had been answered by others." I often think of our short, but precious, visit to this great man. I shall consider it as a kind of an _aera_ in my life.' BOSWELL. [Note: See Appendix G for notes on this footnote.]

[1241] See _ante_, i. 152, 501.

[1242] He wrote to Dr. Taylor on Feb. 17, 1776:--'Keep yourself cheerful. Lie in bed with a lamp, and when you cannot sleep and are beginning to think, light your candle and read. At least light your candle; a man is perhaps never so much harrassed (_sic_) by his own mind in the light as in the dark.' _Notes and Queries_, 6th S. v. 423.

[1243] Mr. Croker records 'the following communication from Mr. Hoole himself':--'I must mention an incident which shews how ready Johnson was to make amends for any little incivility. When I called upon him, the morning after he had pressed me rather roughly to read _louder_, he said, "I was peevish yesterday; you must forgive me: when you are as old and as sick as I am, perhaps you may be peevish too." I have heard him make many apologies of this kind.'

[1244] 'To his friend Dr. Burney he said a few hours before he died, taking the Doctor's hands within his, and casting his eyes towards Heaven with a look of the most fervent piety, "My dear friend, while you live do all the good you can." Seward's _Biographiana,_ p. 601

[1245] Mr. Hoole, senior, records of this day:--'Dr. Johnson exhorted me to lead a better life than he had done. "A better life than you, my dear Sir:" I repeated. He replied warmly, "Don't compliment not." Croker's _Boswell_, p. 844

[1246] See _ ante_, p. 293

[1247] The French historian, Jacques-Auguste de Thou, 1553-1617, author of _Historia sui Temporis_ in 138 books.

[1248] See _ante,_ ii. 42, note 2.

[1249] Mr. Hutton was occasionally admitted to the royal breakfast-table. "Hutton," said the King to him one morning, "is it true that you Moravians marry without any previous knowledge of each other?" "Yes, may it please your majesty," returned Hutton; "our marriages are quite royal" Hannah More's _Memoirs_, i. 318. One of his female-missionaries for North American said to Dr. Johnson:--'Whether my Saviour's service may be best carried on here, or on the coast of Labrador, 'tis Mr. Hutton's business to settle. I will do my part either in a brick-house or a snow-house with equal alacrity.' Piozzi's _Synonymy_, ii. 120. He is described also in the _Memoirs of Dr. Burney_, i. 251, 291.

[1250] _Ante_, ii. 402.

[1251] Burke said of Hussey, who was his friend and correspondent, that in his character he had made 'that very rare union of the enlightened statesman with the ecclesiastic.' Burke's _Corres_. iv. 270.

[1252] Boswell refers, I believe, to Fordyce's epitaph on Johnson in the _Gent. Mag._ 1785, p. 412, or possibly to an _Ode_ on p. 50 of his poems.

[1253] 'Being become very weak and helpless it was thought necessary that a man should watch with him all night; and one was found in the neighbourhood for half a crown a night.' Hawkins's _Life of Johnson_, p. 589.

[1254] It was on Nov. 30 that he repeated these lines. See Croker's _Boswell_, p. 843.

[1255] _British Synonymy_, i. 359. Mrs. Piozzi, to add to the wonder, says that these verses were 'improviso,' forgetting that Johnson wrote to her on Aug 8, 1780 (_Piozzi Letters_, ii. 175):--'You have heard in the papers how --- is come to age. I have enclosed a short song of congratulation which you must not shew to anybody. It is odd that it should come into anybody's head. I hope you will read it with candour; it is, I believe, one of the author's first essays in that way of writing, and a beginner is always to be treated with tenderness.' That it was Sir John Lade who had come of age is shewn by the entry of his birth, Aug. 1, 1759, in the _Gent. Mag._ 1759, p. 392. He was the nephew and ward of Mr. Thrale, who seemed to think that Miss Burney would make him a good wife. (Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, i. 79.) According to Mr. Hayward (_Life of Piozzi_, i. 69) it was Lade who having asked Johnson whether he advised him to marry, received as answer: 'I would advise no man to marry, Sir, who is not likely to propagate understanding.' See _ante_, ii. 109, note 2. Mr. Hayward adds that 'he married a woman of the town, became a celebrated member of the Four-in-Hand Club, and contrived to waste the whole of a fine fortune before he died.' In Campbell's _Chancellors_ (ed. 1846, v. 628) a story is told of Sir John Ladd, who is, I suppose, the same man. The Prince of Wales in 1805 asked Lord Thurlow to dinner, and also Ladd. 'When "the old Lion" arrived the Prince went into the ante-room to meet him, and apologised for the party being larger than he had intended, but added, "that Sir John was an old friend of his, and he could not avoid asking him to dinner," to which Thurlow, in his growling voice, answered, "I have no objection, Sir, to Sir John Ladd in his proper place, which I take to be your Royal Highness's coach-box, and not your table."'

[1256] _British Synonymy_ was published in 1794, later therefore than Boswell's first and second editions. In both these the latter half of this paragraph ran as follows:--"From the specimen which Mrs. Piozzi has exhibited of it (_Anecdotes_, p. 196) it is much to be wished that the world could see the whole. Indeed I can speak from my own knowledge; for having had the pleasure to read it, I found it to be a piece of exquisite satire conveyed in a strain of pointed vivacity and humour, and in a manner of which no other instance is to be found in Johnson's writings. After describing the ridiculous and ruinous career of a wild spendthrift he _consoles_ him with this reflection:--

"You may hang or drown at last."'

[1257] Sir John.

[1258]'"Les morts n'écrivent point," says Madame de Maintenon.' Hannah More's _Memoirs_, i. 233. The note that Johnson received 'was,' says Mr. Hoole, 'from Mr. Davies, the bookseller, and mentioned a present of some pork; upon which the Doctor said, in a manner that seemed as if he thought it ill-timed, "too much of this," or some such expression.' Croker's _Boswell_, p. 844.

[1259] Sir Walter Scott says that 'Reynolds observed the charge given him by Johnson on his death-bed not to use his pencil of a Sunday for a considerable time, but afterwards broke it, being persuaded by some person who was impatient for a sitting that the Doctor had no title to exact such a promise.' Croker's _Corres_. ii. 34. 'Reynolds used to say that "the pupil in art who looks for the Sunday with pleasure as an idle day will never make a painter."' Northcote's _Reynolds_, i. 119. 'Dr. Johnson,' said Lord Eldon, 'sent me a message on his death-bed, to request that I would attend public worship every Sunday.' Twiss's _Eldon_, i. 168. The advice was not followed, for 'when a lawyer, a warm partisan of the Chancellor, called him one of the pillars of the Church; "No," said another lawyer, "he may be one of its buttresses; but certainly not one of its pillars, for he is never found within it."' _Ib_. iii. 488. Lord Campbell (_Lives of the Chancellors_, vii. 716) says:--Lord Eldon was never present at public worship in London from one year's end to the other. Pleading in mitigation before Lord Ellenborough that he attended public worship in the country, he received the rebuke, "as if there were no God in town.'"

[1260] Reynolds records:--'During his last illness, when all hope was at an end, he appeared to be quieter and more resigned. His approaching dissolution was always present to his mind. A few days before he died, Mr. Langton and myself only present, he said he had been a great sinner, but he hoped he had given no bad example to his friends; that he had some consolation in reflecting that he had never denied Christ, and repeated the text, "Whoever denies me, &c." [_St. Matthew_ x. 33.] We were both very ready to assure him that we were conscious that we were better and wiser from his life and conversation; and that so far from denying Christ, he had been, in this age, his greatest champion.' Taylor's _Reynolds_, ii. 459.

[1261] Hannah More (_Memoirs_ i. 393) says that Johnson, having put up a fervent prayer that Brocklesby might become a sincere Christian, 'caught hold of his hand with great earnestness, and cried, "Doctor, you do not say _Amen_." The Doctor looked foolishly, but after a pause cried "_Amen_"' Her account, however, is often not accurate.

[1262] Windham records (_Diary_, p. 30) that on the night of the 12th he urged him to take some sustenance, 'and desisted only upon his exclaiming, "It is all very childish; let us hear no more of it."' On his pressing him a second time, he answered that 'he refused no sustenance but inebriating sustenance.' Windham thereupon asked him to take some milk, but 'he recurred to his general refusal, and begged that there might be an end of it. I then said that I hoped he would forgive my earnestness; when he replied eagerly, "that from me nothing would be necessary by way of apology;" adding with great fervour, in words which I shall (I hope) never forget--"God bless you, my dear Windham, through Jesus Christ;" and concluding with a wish that we might meet in some humble portion of that happiness which God might finally vouchsafe to repentant sinners. These were the last words I ever heard him speak. I hurried out of the room with tears in my eyes, and more affected than I had been on any former occasion.' It was at a later hour in this same night that Johnson 'scarified himself in three places. On Mr. Desmoulins making a difficulty of giving him the lancet he said, "Don't you, if you have any scruples; but I will compel Frank," and on Mr. Desmoulins attempting to prevent Frank from giving it to him, and at last to restrain his hands, he grew very outrageous, so much so as to call Frank "scoundrel" and to threaten Mr. Desmoulins that he would stab him.' _Ib_. p. 32.

[1263] Mr. Strahan, mentioning 'the anxious fear', which seized Johnson, says, that 'his friends who knew his integrity observed it with equal astonishment and concern.' He adds that 'his foreboding dread of the Divine justice by degrees subsided into a pious trust and humble hope in the Divine mercy.' _Pr. and Med._ preface, p. xv.

[1264] The change of his sentiments with regard to Dr. Clarke, is thus mentioned to me in a letter from the late Dr. Adams, Master of Pembroke College, Oxford:--'The Doctor's prejudices were the strongest, and certainly in another sense the weakest, that ever possessed a sensible man. You know his extreme zeal for orthodoxy. But did you ever hear what he told me himself? That he had made it a rule not to admit Dr. Clarke's name in his _Dictionary_. This, however, wore off. At some distance of time he advised with me what books he should read in defence of the Christian Religion. I recommended Clarke's _Evidences of Natural and Revealed Religion_, as the best of the kind; and I find in what is called his _Prayers and Meditations_, that he was frequently employed in the latter part of his time in reading Clarke's _Sermons_. BOSWELL. See _ante_, i. 398.

[1265] The Reverend Mr. Strahan took care to have it preserved, and has inserted it in _Prayers and Meditations_, p. 216. BOSWELL.

[1266] See _ante_, iii. 433.

[1267] The counterpart of Johnson's end and of one striking part of his character may be found in Mr. Fearing in _The Pilgrim's Progress_, part ii. '"Mr. Fearing was," said Honesty, "a very zealous man. Difficulty, lions, or Vanity Fair he feared not at all; it was only sin, death, and hell that were to him a terror, because he had some doubts about his interest in that celestial country." "I dare believe," Greatheart replied, "that, as the proverb is, he could have bit a firebrand, had it stood in his way; but the things with which he was oppressed no man ever yet could shake off with ease."' See _ante_, ii. 298, note 4.

[1268] Her sister's likeness as Hope nursing Love was painted by Reynolds. Northcote's _Reynolds_, i. 185.

[1269] The following letter, written with an agitated hand, from the very chamber of death, by Mr. Langton, and obviously interrupted by his feelings, will not unaptly close the story of so long a friendship. The letter is not addressed, but Mr. Langton's family believe it was intended for Mr. Boswell.

'MY DEAR SIR,--After many conflicting hopes and fears respecting the event of this heavy return of illness which has assailed our honoured friend, Dr. Johnson, since his arrival from Lichfield, about four days ago the appearances grew more and more awful, and this afternoon at eight o'clock, when I arrived at his house to see how he should be going on, I was acquainted at the door, that about three quarters of an hour before, he breathed his last. I am now writing in the room where his venerable remains exhibit a spectacle, the interesting solemnity of which, difficult as it would be in any sort to find terms to express, so to you, my dear Sir, whose own sensations will paint it so strongly, it would be of all men the most superfluous to attempt to--.'--CROKER. The interruption of the note was perhaps due to a discovery made by Langton. Hawkins says, 'at eleven, the evening of Johnson's death, Mr. Langton came to me, and in an agony of mind gave me to understand that our friend had wounded himself in several parts of the body.' Hawkins's _Life_, p. 590. To the dying man, 'on the last day of his existence on this side the grave the desire of life,' to use Murphy's words (_Life_, p. 135), 'had returned with all its former vehemence.' In the hope of drawing off the dropsical water he gave himself these wounds (see _ante_, p. 399). He lost a good deal of blood, and no doubt hastened his end. Langton must have suspected that Johnson intentionally shortened his life.

[1270] Servant to the Right Honourable William Windham. BOSWELL.

[1271] Sir Joshua Reynolds and Paoli were among the mourners. Among the Nichols papers in the British Museum is preserved an invitation card to the funeral.

[1272] Dr. Burney wrote to the Rev. T. Twining on Christmas Day, 1784:--'The Dean and Chapter of Westminster Abbey lay all the blame on Sir John Hawkins for suffering Johnson to be so unworthily interred. The Knight's first inquiry at the Abbey in giving orders, as the most acting executor, was--"What would be the difference in the expense between a public and private funeral?" and was told only a few pounds to the prebendaries, and about ninety pairs of gloves to the choir and attendants; and he then determined that, "as Dr. Johnson had no music in him, he should choose the cheapest manner of interment." And for this reason there was no organ heard, or burial service sung; for which he suffers the Dean and Chapter to be abused in all the newspapers, and joins in their abuse when the subject is mentioned in conversation.' Burney mentions a report that Hawkins had been slandering Johnson. _Recreations and Studies of a Country Clergyman of the XVIII Century_, p. 129. Dr. Charles Burney, jun., had written the day after the funeral:--'The executor, Sir John Hawkins, did not manage things well, for there was no anthem or choir service performed--no lesson--but merely what is read over every old woman that is buried by the parish. Dr. Taylor read the service but so-so.' Johnstone's _Parr_, i. 535.

[1273] Pope's _Essay on Man_, iv. 390. See _ante_, iii. 6, and iv. 122.

[1274] On the subject of Johnson I may adopt the words of Sir John Harrington, concerning his venerable Tutor and Diocesan, Dr. John Still, Bishop of Bath and Wells; 'who hath given me some helps, more hopes, all encouragements in my best studies: to whom I never came but I grew more religious; from whom I never went, but I parted better instructed. Of him therefore, my acquaintance, my friend, my instructor, if I speak much, it were not to be marvelled; if I speak frankly, it is not to be blamed; and though I speak partially, it were to be pardoned.' _Nugoe Antiquoe_, vol. i. p. 136. There is one circumstance in Sir John's character of Bishop Still, which is peculiarly applicable to Johnson: 'He became so famous a disputer, that the learnedest were even afraid to dispute with him; and he finding his own strength, could not stick to warn them in their arguments to take heed to their answers, like a perfect fencer that will tell aforehand in which button he will give the venew, or like a cunning chess-player that will appoint aforehand with which pawn and in what place he will give the mate.' _Ibid_. BOSWELL.

[1275] The late Right Hon. William Gerard Hamilton. MALONE.

[1276] 'His death,' writes Hannah More (_Memoirs_, i. 394), 'makes a kind of era in literature.' 'One who had long known him said of him:--'In general you may tell what the man to whom you are speaking will say next. This you can never do of Johnson.' Johnson's _Works_ (1787), xi. 211.

[1277] Beside the Dedications to him by Dr. Goldsmith [_ante_, ii. 216], the Reverend Dr. Francklin [_ante_, iv. 34], and the Reverend Mr. Wilson [_ante_, iv. 162], which I have mentioned according to their dates, there was one by a lady, of a versification of _Aningait and Ajut_, and one by the ingenious Mr. Walker [_ante_, iv. 206], of his _Rhetorical Grammar_. I have introduced into this work several compliments paid to him in the writings of his contemporaries; but the number of them is so great, that we may fairly say that there was almost a general tribute.

Let me not be forgetful of the honour done to him by Colonel Myddleton, of Gwaynynog, near Denbigh; who, on the banks of a rivulet in his park, where Johnson delighted to stand and repeat verses, erected an urn with the following inscription:

'This spot was often dignified by the presence of SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D. Whose moral writings, exactly conformable to the precepts of Christianity, Gave ardour to Virtue and confidence to Truth [H-1].'

As no inconsiderable circumstance of his fame, we must reckon the extraordinary zeal of the artists to extend and perpetuate his image. I can enumerate a bust by Mr. Nollekens, and the many casts which are made from it; several pictures by Sir Joshua Reynolds, from one of which, in the possession of the Duke of Dorset, Mr. Humphry executed a beautiful miniature in enamel; one by Mrs. Frances Reynolds, Sir Joshua's sister; one by Mr. Zoffani; and one by Mr. Opie [H-2]; and the following engravings of his portrait: 1. One by Cooke, from Sir Joshua, for the Proprietors' edition of his folio _Dictionary_.--2. One from ditto, by ditto, for their quarto edition.--3. One from Opie, by Heath, for Harrison's edition of his _Dictionary_.--4. One from Nollekens' bust of him, by Bartolozzi, for Fielding's quarto edition of his _Dictionary_.--5. One small, from Harding, by Trotter, for his _Beauties_.--6. One small, from Sir Joshua, by Trotter, for his _Lives of the Poets_.--7. One small, from Sir Joshua, by Hall, for _The Rambler_.--8. One small, from an original drawing, in the possession of Mr. John Simco, etched by Trotter, for another edition of his _Lives of the Poets_.--9. One small, no painter's name, etched by Taylor, for his _Johnsoniana_.--10. One folio whole-length, with his oak-stick, as described in Boswell's _Tour_, drawn and etched by Trotter.--11. One large mezzotinto, from Sir Joshua, by Doughty [H-3].--l2. One large Roman head, from Sir Joshua, by Marchi.--13. One octavo, holding a book to his eye, from Sir Joshua, by Hall, for his _Works_.--14. One small, from a drawing from the life, and engraved by Trotter, for his _Life_ published by Kearsley.--15. One large, from Opie, by Mr. Townley, (brother of Mr. Townley, of the Commons,) an ingenious artist, who resided some time at Berlin, and has the honour of being engraver to his Majesty the King of Prussia. This is one of the finest mezzotintos that ever was executed; and what renders it of extraordinary value, the plate was destroyed after four or five impressions only were taken off. One of them is in the possession of Sir William Scott [H-4]. Mr. Townley has lately been prevailed with to execute and publish another of the same, that it may be more generally circulated among the admirers of Dr. Johnson.--16. One large, from Sir Joshua's first picture of him, by Heath, for this work, in quarto.--17. One octavo, by Baker, for the octavo edition.--18. And one for Lavater's _Essay on Physiognomy_, in which Johnson's countenance is analysed upon the principles of that fanciful writer.--There are also several seals with his head cut on them, particularly a very fine one by that eminent artist, Edward Burch, Esq. R.A. in the possession of the younger Dr. Charles Burney.

Let me add, as a proof of the popularity of his character, that there are copper pieces struck at Birmingham, with his head impressed on them, which pass current as half-pence there, and in the neighbouring parts of the country. BOSWELL. [Note: See Appendix H for notes on this footnote.]

[1278] It is not yet published.--In a letter to me, Mr. Agutter says, 'My sermon before the University was more engaged with Dr. Johnson's _moral_ than his _intellectual_ character. It particularly examined his fear of death, and suggested several reasons for the apprehension of the good, and the indifference of the infidel in their last hours; this was illustrated by contrasting the death of Dr. Johnson and Mr. Hume: the text was Job xxi. 22-26.' BOSWELL. It was preached on July 23, 1786, and not at Johnson's death. It is entitled _On the Difference between the Deaths of the Righteous and the Wicked. Illustrated in the Instance of Dr. Samuel Johnson and David Hume, Esq._ The text is from Job xxi. 23 (not 22)-26. It was published in 1800. Neither Johnson nor Hume is mentioned in the sermon itself by name. Its chief, perhaps its sole, merit is its brevity.

[1279] See _ante_, ii. 335, and iii. 375.

[1280] 'May 26, 1791. After the Doctor's death, Burke, Sir Joshua Reynolds, and Boswell sent an ambling circular-letter to me begging subscriptions for a monument for him. I would not deign to write an answer; but sent down word by my footman, as I would have done to parish officers, with a brief, that I would not subscribe.' Horace Walpole's _Letters_, ix. 319. In Malone's correspondence are complaints of the backwardness of the members of the Literary Club 'to pay the amounts nominally subscribed by them.' Prior's _Goldsmith_, ii. 226.

[1281] It was, says Malone, owing to Reynolds that the monument was erected in St. Paul's. In his _Journey to Flanders_he had lamented that sculpture languished in England, and was almost confined to monuments to eminent men. But even in these it had not fair play, for Westminster Abbey was so full, that the recent monuments appeared ridiculous being stuck up in odd holes and corners. On the other hand St. Paul's looked forlorn and desolate. Here monuments should be erected, under the direction of the Royal Academy. He took advantage of Johnson's death to make a beginning with the plan which he had here sketched, and induced his friends to give up their intention of setting up the monument in the Abbey. Reynolds's _Works_, ed. 1824, ii. 248. 'He asked Dr. Parr--but in vain--to include in the epitaph Johnson's title of Professor of Ancient Literature to the Royal Academy; as it was on this pretext that he persuaded the Academicians to subscribe a hundred guineas.' Johnstone's _Parr_, iv. 686. See _ante_, ii. 239, where the question was raised whose monument should be first erected in St. Paul's, and Johnson proposed Milton's.

[1282] The Reverend Dr. Parr, on being requested to undertake it, thus expressed himself in a letter to William Seward, Esq.:

'I leave this mighty task to some hardier and some abler writer. The variety and splendour of Johnson's attainments, the peculiarities of his character, his private virtues, and his literary publications, fill me with confusion and dismay, when I reflect upon the confined and difficult species of composition, in which alone they can be expressed, with propriety, upon his monument.'

But I understand that this great scholar, and warm admirer of Johnson, has yielded to repeated solicitations, and executed the very difficult undertaking. BOSWELL. Dr. Johnson's Monument, consisting of a colossal figure leaning against a column, has since the death of our authour been placed in St. Paul's Cathedral. The Epitaph was written by the Rev. Dr. Parr, and is as follows:

SAMVELI IOHNSON GRAMMATICO ET CRITICO SCRIPTORVM ANGLICORVM LITTERATE PERITO POETAE LVMINIBVS SENTENTIARVM ET PONDERIBVS VERBORVM ADMIRABILI MAGISTRO VIRTVTIS GRAVISSIMO HOMINI OPTIMO ET SINGVLARIS EXEMPLI QVI VIXIT ANN LXXV MENS IL. DIEB XIII DECESSIT IDIB DECEMBR ANN CHRIST cIo Iocc LXXXIIII SEPVLT IN AED SANCT PETR WESTMONASTERIENS XIII KAL IANVAR ANN CHRIST cIo Iocc LXXXV AMICI ET SODALES LITTERARII PECVNIA CONLATA H M FACIVND CVRAVER.

On a scroll in his hand are the following words: [Greek: ENMAKARESSIPONONANTAXIOSEIHAMOIBH].

On one side of the Monument--- FACIEBAT JOHANNES BACON SCVLPTOR ANN. CHRIST. M.DCC.-LXXXXV.

The Subscription for this monument, which cost eleven hundred guineas, was begun by the LITERARY CLUB. MALONE. See Appendix I.

[1283] '"Laetus sum laudari me," inquit Hector, opinor apud Naevium, "abs te, pater, a laudato viro."' Cicero, _Ep. ad Fam_. xv. 6.

[1284] To prevent any misconception on this subject, Mr. Malone, by whom these lines were obligingly communicated, requests me to add the following remark:--

'In justice to the late Mr. Flood, now himself wanting, and highly meriting, an epitaph from his country, to which his transcendent talents did the highest honour, as well as the most important service; it should be observed that these lines were by no means intended as a regular monumental inscription for Dr. Johnson. Had he undertaken to write an appropriated and discriminative epitaph for that excellent and extraordinary man, those who knew Mr. Flood's vigour of mind, will have no doubt that he would have produced one worthy of his illustrious subject. But the fact was merely this: In Dec. 1789, after a large subscription had been made for Dr. Johnson's monument, to which Mr. Flood liberally contributed, Mr. Malone happened to call on him at his house, in Berners-street, and the conversation turning on the proposed monument, Mr. Malone maintained that the epitaph, by whomsoever it should be written, ought to be in Latin. Mr. Flood thought differently. The next morning, in the postscript to a note on another subject, he mentioned that he continued of the same opinion as on the preceding day, and subjoined the lines above given.' BOSWELL. Cowper also composed an epitaph for Johnson--though not one of much merit. See Southey's _Cowper_, v. 119.

[1285] As I do not see any reason to give a different character of my illustrious friend now, from what I formerly gave, the greatest part of the sketch of him in my _Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides_, is here adopted. BOSWELL.

[1286] See _ante_, i. 41.

[1287] For his fox-hunting see _ante_, i. 446, note I.

[1288] _Lucretius_, i. 72.

[1289] See ante, i. 406.

[1290] 'He was always indulgent to the young, he never attacked the unassuming, nor meant to terrify the diffident.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_ ii. 343.

[1291] In the _Olla Podrida_, a collection of Essays published at Oxford, there is an admirable paper upon the character of Johnson, written by the Reverend Dr. Home, the last excellent Bishop of Norwich. The following passage is eminently happy: 'To reject wisdom, because the person of him who communicates it is uncouth, and his manners are inelegant;--what is it, but to throw away a pine-apple, and assign for a reason the roughness of its coat?' BOSWELL. The _Olla Podrida_ was published in weekly numbers in 1787 8. Boswell's quotation is from No. 13.

[1292] 'The _English Dictionary_ was written ... amidst inconvenience distraction, in sickness and in sorrow.' Preface to Johnson's _Dictionary, Works_, v. 51.

[1293] 'For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required.' _Luke_, xii. 48.

[1294] 'If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.' I _Corinthians_, xv. 19.

[1295] See ante, ii. 262, note 2.

[1296] Though a perfect resemblance of Johnson is not to be found in any age, parts of his character are admirably expressed by Clarendon in drawing that of Lord Falkland, whom the noble and masterly historian describes at his seat near Oxford;--'Such an immenseness of wit, such a solidity of judgement, so infinite a fancy, bound in by a most logical ratiocination.--His acquaintance was cultivated by the most polite and accurate men, so that his house was an University in less volume, whither they came, not so much for repose as study, and to examine and refine those grosser propositions, which laziness and consent made current in conversation.'

Bayle's account of Menage may also be quoted as exceedingly applicable to the great subject of this work:--'His illustrious friends erected a very glorious monument to him in the collection entitled Menagiana. Those who judge of things aright, will confess that this collection is very proper to shew the extent of genius and learning which was the character of Menage. And I may be bold to say, that _the excellent works he published will not distinguish him from other learned men so advantageously as this_. To publish books of great learning, to make Greek and Latin verses exceedingly well turned, is not a common talent, I own; neither is it extremely rare, It is incomparably more difficult to find men who can furnish discourse about an infinite number of things, and who can diversify them an hundred ways. How many authours are there, who are admired for their works, on account of the vast learning that is displayed in them, who are not able to sustain a conversation. Those who know Menage only by his books, might think he resembled those learned men; but if you shew the MENAGIANA, you distinguish him from them, and make him known by a talent which is given to very few learned men. There it appears that he was a man who spoke off-hand a thousand good things. His memory extended to what was ancient and modern; to the court and to the city; to the dead and to the living languages; to things serious and things jocose; in a word, to a thousand sorts of subjects. That which appeared a trifle to some readers of the _Menagiana_, who did not consider circumstances, caused admiration in other readers, who minded the difference between what a man speaks without preparation, and that which he prepares for the press. And, therefore, we cannot sufficiently commend the care which his illustrious friends took to erect a monument so capable of giving him immortal glory. They were not obliged to rectify what they had heard him say; for, in so doing, they had not been faithful historians of his conversations.' BOSWELL. Boswell's quotation from Clarendon (ed. 1826, iv. 242) differs somewhat from the original.

[1297] See _ante_, ii. 326, and iv. 236.

[1298] See _ante_, p. iii.

[1299] To this finely-drawn character we may add the noble testimony of Sir Joshua Reynolds:--'His pride had no meanness in it; there was nothing little or mean about him.' Taylor's _Reynolds_, ii. 457.

[1300] In Johnson's character of Boerhaave there is much that applies equally well to himself. 'Thus died Boerhaave, a man formed by nature for great designs, and guided by religion in the exertion of his abilities. He was of a robust and athletick constitution of body, so hardened by early severities and wholesome fatigue that he was insensible of any sharpness of air, or inclemency of weather. He was tall, and remarkable for extraordinary strength. There was in his air and motion something rough and artless, but so majestick and great at the same time, that no man ever looked upon him without veneration, and a kind of tacit submission to the superiority of his genius.... He was never soured by calumny and detraction, nor ever thought it necessary to confute them; "for they are sparks," said he, "which, if you do not blow them, will go out of themselves."... He was not to be overawed or depressed by the presence, frowns, or insolence of great men; but persisted, on all occasions, in the right with a resolution always present and always calm.... Nor was he unacquainted with the art of recommending truth by elegance, and embellishing the philosopher with polite literature.... He knew the importance of his own writings to mankind, and lest he might by a roughness and barbarity of style, too frequent among men of great learning, disappoint his own intentions, and make his labours less useful, he did not neglect the politer arts of eloquence and poetry. Thus was his learning at once various and exact, profound and agreeable.... He asserted on all occasions the divine authority and sacred efficacy of the holy Scriptures; and maintained that they alone taught the way of salvation, and that they only could give peace of mind.' Johnson's _Works_, vi. 288.

[1301] Sir Joshua Reynolds, who was born at Plympton.

[1302] See _ante,_ iii. 43, note 3.

THE END OF THE FOURTH VOLUME.

End of Project Gutenberg's Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6), by Boswell